I’ve kicked off 2025 watching all the Alien films in order, that’s the plan anyway. Some I’ve seen before, some will be new to me. Aliens is a rewatch. James Cameron takes over from Ridley Scott and it shows. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is back and now very much the focal point and the star. We meet her here in hypersleep on the frozen ship she escaped in at the end of Alien. Rescued, but now on a space station, she meets Burke (Paul Reiser). An irritating company man, he’ll only get more annoying as the film goes on, but that’s his point. The tech has all improved, that’s because she’s been floating in space for 57 years. The average IQ hasn’t though. The bureaucrats don’t believe her story… but they’ll soon realise they need her. It turns out that planet where the Alien ship was found last time, is now in the process of being colonised by workers that soon discover they’re not alone and off we go again. All the slow build tension of the original is tossed out the window. I guess we’ve seen how a face-hugger works, but this is still clunky. The company lose touch with the colony… obviously and ask Ripley to return, with a bribe to give her back her officer status after destroying her last ride. Ripley though only has one reason to return, to wipe the Aliens out. Cue a tooled up rag-tag bunch of soldiers accompanying her back in to deep space. All instantly dislikable, not a brain cell between them. Dull dialogue machines. Honestly Cameron, he really is a terrible director. One of the few characters, alongside Ripley, with any nuance is Bishop (Lance Henriksen) and he’s an Android, which of course Ripley isn’t keen on. To be honest with all the ridiculous yahoo American bravado, I’m rooting for the Aliens to kill em all. As the team reach the colony planet, it’s like Vietnam in space. A handy atmosphere stabilising machine does away with the need for space suits though, so really this could be anywhere. I mean, why on earth are they wearing camouflage gear. All its many issues and monolithic inaccuracies aside, it is a good suspenseful action thriller. Weaver, although given some terrible lines is great and the Aliens are of course fantastic. It benefits a lot from everything set-up in the original, but adds little to it. It knows it’s ace are the Aliens, so we’re made to wait. Slowly teasing. The discovery of Newt (Carrie Henn), the last survivor of the colony adds a little more sentiment to all the posturing and she does add at least one more character that you want to survive. It does look good too. A nice mix of scrungy of the time miniatures that look cool and occasionally a bit Thunderbirds. The budget has clearly gone on the Aliens, that quite frankly still look incredible. Trapped, the remaining cast go full A-Team as they try to make it to the end of the bloated 140 minute runtime and eliminate the Aliens. Except that’s not the brief is it. This is the era of the franchise boom that we’re still suffering. If you don’t like endless films bleeding an idea dry, blame this… and Rocky. It’s a terrible sequel considering what it had to work with, but the finale, nuts as it is, is undeniably iconic and worth sticking around for.
6/10
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