Very overrated

Rating: 5/10 (23 September 2011)

Aliens is, by all accounts, a very solid and effective sci-fi epic. James Cameron shifted the horror/sci-fi blend of the 1979 original towards a more action/adventure oriented film, and as such, it works: The action scenes are good all around. But as a follow-up to one of the finest sci-fi films ever made, it fell short for me, and the constant referring to it as the best film in the series is, in my opinion, heavily unjustified. Even if taken at face-value as an action movie, it doesn't have a lot of substance on top of the action, and unlike Cameron's Terminator films it's often lacking in structure, pacing and especially in self-awareness of any kind - Aliens is dead and dull serious all the time.
And when compared to the first movie, a champion of tension and atmosphere, Aliens is almost constantly predictable, and failed to get me into any state of real suspense. Also, while Alien was filled to the brim by a cast of first rate character actors - John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Tom Skerritt - which made every death a shocking moment, the cast of Aliens, except for Sigourney Weaver's admittedly excellent performance (though I preferred her scared survivor in Alien over her kick-ass action girl in Aliens), is pretty dull. Lance Henriksen is good in his few brief scenes as Bishop, but Michael Biehn is as unimpressive as ever, Carrie Henn doesn't get any real sympathy, and as for Paul Reiser - his cookie-cutter evil-corporate-shell character is as dull as his perfect clone, Giovanni Ribisi's character in Avatar.
I may have overstated the movie's faults - it's not, by any means, a bad one, but for those reasons (mainly) I can't consider it one of my favorites, while Ridley Scott's original is. Interesting to note that many of those reasons are the same that make me dislike all other James Cameron movies, all of which are, with the exception of T2, unbelievably and ridiculously overrated.