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Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Ripley (Sigourney Weaver)
Michael Biehn (Cpl. Hicks)
Lance Henriksen (Bishop)
Bill Paxton (Pvt. Hudson)
Janette Goldstein (Pvt Vasquez)


: Ellen Ripley, the only survivor of the first film, awakens 57 years after her deadly encounter with the alien. Learning the "Company" now wants her to go back to a now infested LV-426 :

57 years after her grotesque encounter with the Alien and the planet LV-426, Ellen Ripley (Weaver) is found in cryo-sleep, floating on board the Narcissus (the escape pod). Once awake, she is plagued by her memories from the first film. She then has to explain to a board of "Company" officials about the alien, why the crew are dead and why she blew the ship.
They don't believe her story and bust her ass down from Lieutenant to working in a cargo bay. Whilst leaving the hearing, Ripley asks them just to check the planet out. To her horror, she is told that it has since been colonized and there are people starting to live there.

A few days later a Company official, Carter Burke, visits Ripley to tell her they have lost contact with the colony and they want her to go down with a team of marines to investigate. Here we meet the rest of the cast: Coporal Hicks (Biehn), Private Hudson (Paxton), Private Vasquez (Goldstein), Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope) and Bishop (Henriksen). There are others in the team of marines, but they are just fodder and the ones that die first. They are all hard-ass soldiers, well trained and eager to set foot on LV-426 and get some action.

After going to the planet in a drop ship, the team discovers the colony empty. While looking for survivors, they find a 12 year old girl nick-named Newt. Ripley and Newt soon become close as they have both encountered the Alien and have lost loved ones. As the group nears what appears to be a congregation of people, they discover bodies wrapped to the walls in cocoons. The whole colony is being used as a nesting ground for the aliens. One of the cocooned people is alive, but not for long as alien bursts out of her chest. Seconds after they kill it, they are forced to fall back to the ship. Giving chase is not one, but dozens of aliens. In a creul twist, they aren't allowed to fire their rifles as they are right underneath a nuclear reactor.
An alien gets onto the drop ship and causes it to crash. They are now stranded until they can remote pilot the second drop ship from the space ship "Sulaco".

While Alien is more of a horror film, Aliens is a rip-roaring sci-fi action film all the way through. The aliens are bought into the light more i nthis, they are still kept in the brooding darkness.
Direction from Cameron is nothing short ofamazing. His attention to detail shines in Aliens. From the sets being used to create the doomed alien atmosphere, to his cast being put through a greulling 2-week training program allowing them to work together onscreen as a well trained military team. The detail doesn't stop there, either as Cameron holds nothing back by pushing the envelope with his camera work, lighting, fog and pyrotechnics. Of course none of this would matter without the amazing score James Horner composed for the film, for which he recieved an Oscar nomination.

Performances from the actors in Aliens ar superb. Normally, sci-fi and horror films lack the talent to pull off believable characters. In the case of Aliens though, Cameron was given an outstadnig cast of characters. Sigourney Weaver stands out as Ripley again, earning her an Oscar nomination. Janette Goldstein as Vasquez steals more than one scene, as do Bill Paxton and Lance Henriksen.

So how does Aliens hold up in the make-up an gore department? Not too bad considering Cameron doesn't like blood soaked films. Stan Winston's effects crew are have done an unbelievable job bringing the insect-like terrors into a fast moving army. This time around the aliens come in numbers and to take Aliens further, Stan Winston created a huge Queen alien that lays eggs in the colony. The queen's scenes are at the very end, and they are the most breath taking in the whole film, and are well worth the wait.

It is hard to decide which is better: Alien or Aliens, as they are different genres of films. Alien has the fear and tension, Aliens has the drama and excitement. Still gets 10 out of 10 in my book.

Go see it.