This horror movie review of Aliens will go
down in history
Shocker!
Zombie Master Lee and Best-Horror-Movies.com
editor Don Sumner do not agree on Aliens! This
review represents the first disagreement between the Zombie Master and
me.
Release:
1986 Written and Directed by: James Cameron
Starring:
Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley Carrie Henn as Rebecca ‘Newt’
Jordan Michael Biehn as Cpl. Dwayne Hicks Lance Henriksen as Bishop Paul Reiser as Burke
I go to the
theater to watch Aliens
expecting a sequel to
one of the best horror films ever made. What I get is a sci-fi action
film that leaves me vocally p.o.’ed. How could they do this
to a
classic? Had James Cameron not even watched the
first film? It
wasn’t until a few years later that I gave it another viewing
and
was looking at this film in a different light that I realized that it
could just “barely” fit into the horror category.
Aliens finds Ripley
(Sigourney Weaver) right where we left her at the end of Alien;
floating in hypersleep after escaping the Nostromo. She is picked up by
a salvage team that takes her to a hospital where she is awakened and
we find out that it has been 57 years since the
events from the
first film. She discovers from Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) that a
terra-forming colony has been sent to LV-426; the very planet where
Ripley’s former crew members brought aboard an deadly creep
that
ended up taking out everyone on board.
The Company has lost contact
with the colony and Ripley has been
reluctantly called upon to accompany Burke and a band of marines to go
and investigate. What they find is that the creatures have
taken over
and have turned the colony into an elaborate breeding ground. Like a
colony of ants, the creatures have a group for working, one for
fighting and one for breeding, all with one purpose in mind; to protect
the queen at all costs thus insuring the success of the hive.
What follows is a typical
war film with a protagonist, an antagonist, and a sniveling,
back-stabbing creep that will do anything for the powers that be.
I find it difficult to give any
credence to those movie goers that attempt to compare James
Cameron’s Aliens with Ridley
Scott’s Alien.
They are two different movies, but since Cameron's film is a sequel I
do think it is logical to critique Cameron’s take on
Ridley’s work.
Where Cameron succeeds in this film is
with the character development. Not only do we get more
history on Ripley
but Cameron does a good job with the introduction of Newt (Carrie
Henn). He also succeeds in supplying tension and suspense though I do
feel that Cameron could have done without some of the comic relief that
did nothing other than break the tension up.
Where Cameron
failed was in the overall
feel of Aliens.
The dark, oppressive, and claustrophobic sense that made the first film
great did not convert well to an action/sci-fi/thriller.
To appreciate this film for what
it is, a good sci-fi/thriller, you must watch it as part of an
anthology. All of the Alien
films should be seen as different stories, by different authors with
the same central characters. When viewed with this mentality, even
the third installment doesn’t seem that bad. Questions
or comments about Aliens? Contact us!
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The Company has lost contact
with the colony and Ripley has been
reluctantly called upon to accompany Burke and a band of marines to go
and investigate. What they find is that the creatures have
taken over
and have turned the colony into an elaborate breeding ground. Like a
colony of ants, the creatures have a group for working, one for
fighting and one for breeding, all with one purpose in mind; to protect
the queen at all costs thus insuring the success of the hive.
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