Aliens

It goes without saying that for 1986's ALIENS, James Cameron took a far less nuanced approach than his predecessor.  In 1979,  Ridley Scott fashioned a shocking, sometimes gory, always hugely suspenseful sci-fi/horror film that became a sizable hit and cultural phenomenon.  The original ALIEN managed to play like an art film.  Deliberately paced and aside from its famous chest bursting scene not preoccupied with big gross out set pieces.  Cameron goes big, really big and aggressive for the sequel.  His considerable skills more suited for an action movie, and that's what we get.   A tense, relentless hybrid of the original film and Cameron's THE TERMINATOR.    Maybe shades of RAMBO as well.

It's one of those rare occasions where more is more.   More scares, more guns, more gooeyness.  Many more aliens with those extending jaws and teeth.  And thankfully, more Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), now front and center as she reluctantly accompanies a platoon of Marines to a moon colony where contact has been lost.  Ripley was in hypersleep for nearly sixty years.  The lone survivor of the ship Nostromo, where she first encountered the fearsome xenomorph creature.  The Corporation seeks her experience to guide the grunts as they seek to discover what happened to the colonists on LV-426.  To wipe out those nasty extraterrestrials. 

Cameron loves the tech.  We get lots of close-ups and explanations of hardware.  Hard science fiction.  We also get believable depictions of the soldiers, led by Sgt. Apone (real-life Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient Al Matthews) and Corporal Hicks (Michael Biehn).  Bill Paxton is memorable (and very funny) as Private Hudson, prone to wisecracks and panic attacks.   Paul Reiser's work as a spineless corporate stooge is also noteworthy.

Weaver solidifies her iconography in a highly physical and emotional performance, one for which she received a well deserved Oscar nomination.  Cameron, who also wrote the screenplay, beautifully develops the stern but caring Ripley, often in her relationship with Newt (Carrie Henn), a young girl discovered at the ravaged colony.   But its mostly Sigourney's superior choices and intuitiveness that bring Ripley to life.

ALIENS up the ante on set design as well, and every detail is worthy of a freeze frame. The hulls of ships, for starters.  Kudos to Syd Mead and company.  The aliens themselves, H.R. Geiger's creation, now more mobile and elaborate, with nimble work by Cameron and f/x whiz Stan Winston.     

I still favor the original film, but ALIENS works as its own beast.  Never feeling like a bastardization of the original ideas, more of a logical expansion of them.  It's scary and creepy as hell and exhilarating in its relentless scrapes.  Truly a war movie.  More kudos to editor Ray Lovejoy, who with Cameron gives this just the right pace.  I feel the series should've ended here, but we got two more inferior follow-ups and some unfortunate prequels many years later.  Stopping here is advised, invisible audience.