Aliens

Aliens (1986)

A passing deep space salvage vessel finally finds the lone survivor of the Nostromo, Ripley, 57 years after entering cryo sleep. When she returns to Earth Ripley tells her story to the company, who holds her responsible for the loss of the ship and the cargo it was carrying. No one believes her about the creature that wiped out her crew and they take her license to crew a ship away. Right before she hears about that decision to suspend her license she finds out that her daughter has died of old age while she was in cryo sleep. Later a member of the company, Carter Burke, shows up to ask her if she would consider traveling with a group of marines to investigate the planet where she says they discovered the alien. It seems that the colony on that island has stopped communicating and with her report of the alien life form they are going to investigate. She initially refuses, but after another sleepless night and with the promise of restoring her license she agrees to go. Everything goes smoothly until the marines and Ripley arrive on the planet, only to discover all of the colonists except one small girl are missing. Things go from bad to worse when the marines finally do run into the aliens and as one character puts it “get their asses kicked”. The rest of the movie is a shrinking group of survivors trying to find their way off of the planet so that they can nuke the facility from orbit. Eventually Ripley has to face off with the alien queen in what is one of the most exciting finales to any movie that I’ve ever seen.

The first two films of the Alien series are both excellent movies that strangely enough aren’t really even in the same genre. The first film was a really excellent and scary movie that is played as a haunted house. This second movie doesn’t pack nearly the tension or suspense that the first film had. The second movie is one of the best action films that I’ve ever seen. Where the first movie kept you entertained with a slowly building sense of dread the second one just keeps throwing well choreographed and executed action scenes at the audience. Now I don’t want to sound as if there is not a plot, because there is a very interesting plot to this movie. As we find out earlier (if you watch the directors cut) Ripley had a daughter that has died of old age while she was gone. So when the character of the little girl, Newt, is introduced her motherly instincts to protect her are understandable. In fact Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Ripley in this second film is in my opinion far superior to the first film. This isn’t a comment on her skills as an actress, but should be attributed to the superior script that James Cameron wrote for the film. This interaction between Ripley and Newt is what really gives Aliens it heart and soul. Honestly with the exception of maybe Lance Henriksen’s performance as Bishop the rest of the characters are there to be killed by the aliens and deliver snappy dialog (game over man!).

If I have one complaint about Aliens it would have to involve some of the special effects used in the movie. The alien creatures themselves look really great, especially the queen. Since this film predates the use of CGI they had to make a puppet that could be manipulated on set. The detail and creativity of master effects artist Stan Winston have never looked better and the queen is one of the best creatures that I’ve ever seen. Where the movie breaks down for me would be the shots that they used miniatures in. While very well done they still do look like models, especially the shots where they used rear projection to show people moving inside of the buildings. This is nothing more than a television sitting behind the windows of the model. I understand that in the mid 80s on the budget that they had it was the best that could be done. In fact I remember seeing the movie in theaters when it came out and thinking that the effects were really good. But if there is one place that the movie does show it’s age it would have to be the effects shots mentioned above. I guess sometimes old school isn’t the best way to go (wow even I can’t believe I just wrote that…).

For this review I checked out the new Blu-Ray edition that was included in the Alien’s Anthology box set. This set is filled so extras that should have every fan of the Alien franchise drooling. Plus getting to see the movie in high def is nice as well. Between the movie itself and the features included on this new set I can’t recommend this one more.

4 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer