Year: 1986
Director: James Cameron
Writer(s): James Cameron, David Giler, and Walter Hill
Region of Origin: U.S.
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: R
35mm, Color, 137 mins (148 mins Director’s Cut)
Synopsis: The planet from Alien has been colonized, but contact is lost. This time, the rescue team has impressive firepower, but will it be enough? (Source)
(Note: We screened the director’s cut for this review.) Where Ridley Scott’s Alien is dark, menacing, and claustrophic, the 1986 sequel Aliens, directed by a young James Cameron, is anything but. Full of guns-blazing action, this movie takes the cryptic and grotesque horror of its predecessor and exchanges it for a more in-your-face thrill ride, while still retaining enough of the mystery and paradoxically repulsive allure that made the first film such a huge hit. Essentially a big, brash blockbuster, in many ways Aliens has spawned a genre that has been imitated and rehashed across many different platforms since its release, both for better and for worse.
Only two years removed from his first foray into the sci-fi genre with Terminator, Cameron sticks to a similar sci-fi/action hybrid model for Aliens. The surprising box office success of Alien lead to a budget nearly double the size for the sequel, and with that came huge special effects, giant action set pieces, and Cameron amping up the Alien lore in bigger (literally, Queen anyone?) and badder ways. As quickly as he heralds Ripley 57 years into the future, Cameron sets the audience off on a space adventure to kill as many “xenomorphs” as possible, all to the tune of huge box office returns and seven Academy Award nominations.
In almost every facet, Aliens serves as a departure from the original, but one thing it does have in common is a great ensemble of characters to follow and root both for and against during their hellish experience on LV-426. Lead by the indomitable Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, who puts together an incredibly strong-willed and heroic performance), we’re introduced to the likes of insufferable corporate avatar Carter Burke (Paul Riser), all around good-guy Cpl. Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn), tough-minded kid survivor Newt (Carrie Henn), surprisingly humanistic android Bishop (Lance Henriksen), and the over-the-top rah-rah comedy of Pvt. Hudson (Bill Paxton). All represent various types of some sort, be it arche, stereo, or proto, and provide the minutes and build-up in-between fight scenes and scares with much needed comedy, drama, and heart. In particular, I love the juxtaposition between the two androids of the original and this sequel, with Bishop providing an immensely satisfying redemptive counterpart to Ash’s coldly methodical protocol. But in my opinion, Cameron’s greatest achievement in Aliens is taking the character Ellen Ripley and transforming her from an unassuming survivor into a dauntless heroine. The final showdown between Ripley and the Queen is one of the most iconic battles ever filmed, and for one of the few times in movie (let alone sci-fi) history, combines maternal and feminine motivations with the courageous bad-assery of a vanquishing hero pitted against an evil beyond imagination. Should Aliens be lauded for anything, it’s taking such a risk and solidifying Ellen Ripley’s and Sigourney Weaver’s place as one of the greatest heroes in film and pop-culture history.
However, Aliens is not without its faults. Most of my own criticisms result from comparing it to the original, a masterpiece in my mind. Typically I try to stay away from such direct comparisons, but being that this film is a sequel, I think it’s fair. To that point, I have to say I much prefer Alien to Cameron’s sequel, for many of the reasons Sal outlines in his review. While Aliens is fraught with jump scares and hails of gunfire, it’s not nearly as terrifying as the original, nor as psychologically interesting. Besides a strong advocacy for female heroes, the sequel lacks a compelling subtext. Similarly, Aliens neuters a lot of the mystery behind the creatures, turning what was a single haunting spectre into hordes and swarms to be exterminated like insects. The change in the aesthetic of the xenomorph is also a poor choice, taking what was an androgynous, nearly machine-like monster and making it feel less, well, alien. The one exception is Cameron’s introduction of the Queen, which has held up remarkably well over the years, one of the few instances where he built off something from the original in a natural sort of progression, rather than completely flipping things on their heads.
On its own, Aliens represents the advent of the big-budget sci-fi action flick, springing forth a torrent of copycats in film, tv, and video games, both in the past 25 years and the future to come. It takes just enough originality and innovation from its inspiration and makes it more accessible and straighforward for a much larger audience, a feat that is incredibly difficult to do and when not done well can result in some of the poorest schlock out there. Though not quite as impactful as the enigmatic terror of the original, you’ve got to hand it to Cameron, hardly anyone can put together such larger-than-life events like he does, and Aliens is no exception. As the tagline says, “this time it’s war.” Game over, man! Game over!
Crome Rating: 4.5/5
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