Aliens (1986)

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  TheMovieDiorama

  9 / 10

  Aliens substitutes pure horror for war...and it works so well. The original was masterful work so I was naturally apprehensive that a sequel may ruin the credibility of the first film, needless to say it does the opposite and actually cements the franchise as one of the best! Ripley wakes up after hyper sleep to find out that colonisation has taken place on LV-426, but of course guess what's there...the damn terrifying Xenomorphs. So she joins a group of marines to venture down there and wipe out the alien population, but naivety gets the better of them and are overwhelmed by the sheer volume. James Cameron decided "I think viewers had enough scares from the original, let's turn the sequel into a war film!" and I'm glad he did. The transition was seamless and definitely made the experience more fun overall. I, personally, preferred the original just because there was tighter focus on the story and it was smaller in scale, therefore a more complete cinematic masterpiece...but this comes close! Who knew that getting rid of the screams of fear and switching it with the "pew pew" of massive guns would work. Having said that, those face hugger scenes still terrify me and I continuously cower in fear...every god damn time. I really appreciated the progression in Ripley as a character, her motherly instinct towards Newt allowed her to be vulnerable and more human. You thought she was a badass previously? No no no, she turns it up by over 9000 and goes head to head with the Alien Queen (who's design is badass in itself) in a robot suit!? Ohhhhh jeez I was shouting at the TV: "FLIPPING KILL IT RIPLEY! GET IN THERE!". *ahem* Must compose myself. The production design is just as good and the story is just as involving, although some characters are less fleshed out in comparison to the original. I also appreciated the continuity, the story and overall aesthetics matched its predecessor. The negatives I've mentioned are extremely small nitpicks though, Aliens was an absolute blast from start to end and is one of the best from the 80's.

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