A functional plot built up with the most vivid and beautiful and demonic effects

Rating: 7/10 (24 March 2011)

Aliens (1986)
I had a revealing experience these last two days. I heard "Aliens" without watching most of it (I was in the other room). And the script is really really bad. I mean stupid bad, with these quasi military people fighting against the monsters and saying canned military things that are taken not from real army dialog but from other movies. The events really boil down to a series of missteps, and even though this band of Marines is made of tough "hombres" sure enough, they can't seem to get along, or get things done, or even hold their overly heavy weapons up straight.
I did watch for part of it, and I have seen the movie more than once before, and I'm a fan of the first one, "Alien," from 1979 (on the heels of the "Star Wars" craze). I expected it to be pretty good, like the first one, which has real character development and an original kind of premise. But...well, think again.
Hey, I agree with most--the set design, the sense of action, the light and camera-work, the whole larger than life experience of being in this forbidding place, this is all great. Even the over the top "movie music" is appropriately symphonic and big. There's no way around the fact the movie is well made, and feels convincing in these palpable terms. It looks great top to bottom, and even on contemporary terms (we are a quarter century later as I write), it is sophisticated. It has aged well. If that were all that mattered--and for some it might be!--then all is well.
But for me, I was still thinking there might be some interesting, chilling plot to follow. This second installment, always confusing in its plural title "Aliens," is filled with a combination of stale ideas (taken politely from the first round) and romping action adventure boy stuff. It is if more intense than the first (more fighting, more firepower), but it's far less creepy. It has more goo, and more gore, but less horror, and less fear.
As with the original, the lead character is a woman, and indeed a whole bunch of the Marines are women, and so this is no simple manly movie. But it remains a macho movie, or a "machisma" one, and that will suit many viewers fine. But if you are remotely interested in the science fiction aspects, or even the terror of the first movie (which was truly terrifying), you might be disappointed to find you are continually battered instead. It's great battering, but if you actually listen to the dialog (when there is any--the best parts of the movie are merely sounds), you'll see what I mean.
James Cameron, the director here (and not the director of the first one, which is credited to the more original Ridley Scott), does the famous Cameron thing, playing a kind of "Star Wars" game of making an epic suited for about a 17 year old. Not that older people (and younger) can't enjoy it, but movies have their target points, and that's it here. You can see it in the dialog and plot, of course, but also in the overall feel of things, which is a combination of early computer games (1986 is a long time ago in those terms) and swashbuckler classics. It's a vivid, fast movie.
You will notice, in retrospect, some "Avatar" features that are interesting, beyond just Sigourney Weaver. Foremost, this is a military affair, very right wing, go-get-em stuff, but with the admirable (American) rise of the individual above the chaos of both internal logistics and the logic of the evil outer world.
The monster? Monstrous. The famous designer H.H. Giger is not involved here except by carryover from the first. It's a good thing he was the originator because the basic visual and sculptural quality of the monster, the planet, the ships, and the sets, is under Giger's brilliant sway, and is a defining quality of the film. It makes no biologic or engineering sense, but so what? It looks great.
In all, clearly, there are amazing things here, taken on their own level. But there are discouraging ones, too, for those who are willing to pay attention. The little blonde girl at one point says, "Mommy...I mean Ripley, I'm scared." And Ripley (Weaver) says, "I know, Honey. Me, too." That's the core of it all. Don't forget your grenade launcher.