Aliens is an awesome sci-fi action movie featuring a great cast, wonderful special effects, and of course one of the most unnerving movie monsters of all time. This movie is great, you just have fun watching it. The cast gels extremely well, Sigourney Weaver gives a great performance as Ellen Ripley, and even the late-great Bill Paxton makes an appearance. James Cameron picks up where Ridley Scott left off and does one of the best jobs of his career. So before you say game over man, let's dive in to what I love about Aliens.
First off, the Aliens themselves. You can't get much more iconic than the Xenomorph. A roughly man sized(though they can take on the traits of whatever they are hosted in) creature, the Xenomorph is not so much a monster as an animal. It is just doing what comes naturally, unfortunately for us that is killing anything they come across or hauling them back to serve as hosts for new Xenomorphs. Now don't mistake animal for stupid, the Xenomorphs can be very clever and won't just blindly rush you over and over. That is what makes them so scary to me, they can't be reasoned with or bought, they don't feel remorse or pity, they just are. I have always found the force of nature villains to be more scary than ones motivated by more grandiose ideas. The effects used to bring them to life are great, and still hold up 32 years later. As much as I wouldn't want to be trapped with an adult Xenomorph, I think I would rather that than to be trapped with a face-hugger like in one of the most tense scenes of the movie.
Now as the Xenomorphs are animals we need a secondary villain with motivations to drive the plot along, enter Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Ellen was working for them in the original Alien and is drafted back into service, kicking off the plot. Unknown to all but the weaselly Carter Burke the real goal of Weyland-Yutani is to capture a Xenomorph to study it as a potential weapon. They know exactly why LV-426 has gone silent and they send the team anyway, talk about cold. I have to mention that the character of Burke was played very well by Paul Reiser, he is that kind of character you just love to hate. These events bring together Ellen, a team of marines, and an android(or synthetic person as he likes to be called) called Bishop, again portrayed brilliantly by Lance Henriksen.
This movie just flows together perfectly. I never feel bored or over saturated with action or exposition, everything is done in balance and it makes for a great film. I first saw this with my Dad between 10-12( a running theme for great movies apparently) and I still have vivid memories of being scared out of my mind when I would hear my house creak at night. Let's just say I slept with one eye open for a while. I would say I see this movie at least once a year, sometimes twice. For me it just never gets old. It's nice to be able to remember a time when Xenomorphs were one of the scariest things I had to worry about, instead of opening my bank statement.
This movie is a must watch. Even if you don't love it, I think you can at least admit that a group of people really cared about the project and came together to make something worth remembering. It is my second favorite James Cameron movie, but that is for another Thursday. If you haven't seen this movie watch it now, if you have watch it again. Thank you for reading, and remember nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.
