- Nate Lemann
ALIEN HORROR SUMMER - NO. 8: ALIENS (1986) MOVIE REVIEW
James Cameron’s sequel to Ridley Scott’s claustrophobic alien horror thriller is an action extravaganza that really hits its stride in a breathless second half.
by Nate Lemann
Revisiting this staple of Alien Horror for the first time in years, I was struck by how slowly the events of the story actually unfold. 57 years after the heart-pounding ending of the 1979 classic, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Jonesy are awoken from their long hyper-sleep and returned back to an Earth spaceport. Ripely deals with mounting frustration as no one believes her recounting of the first film’s events, stating that there is no way anyone wouldn’t have found signs of a Xenomorph by now. With her whole life having passed her by while in hyper-sleep, Ripley is left with nothing but haunted dreams where she is the victim of the chest-burster (a great touch having this be the triggering event out of all the horrors she witnessed on her fateful journey all those years ago).
After a Weyland exec named Burke (a perfectly smarmy Paul Reiser) tells her they lost contact with a colony that got set up on the same planet as the facehugger eggs, they need her to go and help a team of marines get ready for what they are about to get into. The team is comprised of some great character actors of the time: Micheal Biehn as Hicks, the only marine who heeds what Ripley says; Bill Paxton as Hudson, the loudmouth of the group (and that is saying something with this unprofessional group); William Hope as Gorman, the new LT. out of his depth; Jenette Goldstein as Vasquez, the hardest woman you’ll ever meet; Al Matthews as Apone, the drill sergeant doing his best R. Lee Ermey impression; Mark Rolston as Drake, a hippie like bruiser; and Lance Henricksen as Bishop, a more morally pure synthetic than Ripley is used to. The crew is fun as hell in their introductions, with the knife scene being a real early highlight.
Once they hit the ground, they find that the colony station is just…empty. That is except for little Newt (Carrie Henn), a small, young girl who is too traumatized to warn the crew of what did all this damage. When they start to go looking for survivors is when this film kicks into high gear, adding an overarching threat of an unstable nuclear reactor that could launch them all into oblivion. They also discover testing the colonists were doing on the facehuggers, quite the contrary to what Ripley was led to believe by Burke. When the marines stumble upon the “hatching” chamber, the promise of the film’s title is finally realized, not dealing with just one of the famed Xenomorphs but rather a whole army of them. Most of the marines are wasted in gory fashion, leaving a skeleton crew led by Ripley to find a way off world and blow this horrid planet sky high.
After a very slow first half, Cameron kicks the film into high gear with great set piece after great set piece, becoming a game of “and then there was…”, slowly picking off the survivors one-by-one. The heart of the film is Ripley and Newt’s connection, Sigourney becoming the epitome of the protective mama in the concluding section (“Get away from her, you bitch!” is an all-time mom corp line). The marines are also so vividly memorable, with some of the most iconic side characters in film history in this film (Paxton’s “Game over, man! Game over!” line reading is about as good as it gets). Hicks also serves as a platonic love interest for Ripley, with Cameron wisely keeping the affection of Ripley pointed at Newt. It sets up Ripley’s badass turn in the climax. No action star, male or female, has been shot with as much reverence as Cameron shoots Weaver. She is the ultimate scrappy badass. To be candid, there has never been anyone who looks as powerful and attractive as they make Sigourney look in that final third of the film. She is an Amazon doing battle with these hellish creatures.
The creature design is evolved from the first film, with the queen introduction being one of the more iconic monster reveals in cinema history. I will say that some of the VFX is a bit dated, with many of the spaceship scenes very clearly models being played with. That said, for the time, it was revolutionary and a harbinger of the technical wizard that Cameron would become, always at the forefront of what is possible to capture on film.
This film is a staple of science fiction action/horror for a reason. Instead of trying to replicate the style and tone of the first film, Cameron wisely charted his own path in the franchise to deliver an empowering parable for motherhood and in the process, established Sigourney Weaver as the most iconic final girl/action star in horror history.
FINAL RATING: 4.5/5 Stars (Iconic sci-fi action epic with a powerful turn from the incomparable Sigourney Weaver)
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