Review of Aliens (1986) by Swati — 14 Dec 2013

Takes off in a completely different direction from the original. While the first one was more about the fear that arises in people in the face of an unknown and deadly danger, this was more about an all out open warfare between humans and an overwhelming army of aliens, hence the title. I could see hints of James Cameron's other memorable character, The Terminator, in the Ripley of this instalment.

I could sympathize with some of the secondary characters, the ones who were well developed, but couldn't care less about the others, who I rightly recognized as cannon fodder from the outset. This time around, a child survivor is thrown into the mix, a girl called Newt. She is a primary character and I found her portrayal very satisfying.

The action sequences were shot extremely well. They both enthralled and kept the tempo running. James Cameron's direction captures every scene with subtlety and precision, a technique which he improved over time and used in delivering a greater film a few years later in the shape of a sequel to another franchise. But this movie amongst his other works proves beyond any doubt that he has all the makings of a great action director.

The effects did not necessarily jump out at you. They seemed to be at the same standard as the ones from the original, even though this was made seven years later. The score was slow paced and haunting.

Ripley seems different from the first movie. She feels like another character. And as it is mainly an action flick, this change is not explored. In Alien, she was a flawed heroine. But here she just fills the boots of a main character, firing guns, killing stuff, and hardly ever pauses for reflection. In essence, she brings nothing new to the table, even though the movie ran for two and a half hours. A lot of this time was spent developing the other characters, some of which were fairly well realized, so some amongst the audience may be more satisfied than I was.

Why I couldn't give this movie a perfect score has a combination of reasons that ultimately has to do with my personal preference. Cameron is clearly intrigued by ideas and stories of heroic men and women struggling to survive against odds ordinary mankind may not be able to cope with. These larger than life super monsters often create much of the action and drama in many of Cameron's other movies too. Ridley Scott's Alien was a simple science fiction, albeit significantly more plausible, tale about a parasitic alien species who reproduce by inhabiting living organisms and killing them eventually.

Cameron does not explain how or why these species came into being, where the Queen came from, or what happened to the ship where these eggs were found at the start of the first film. He simply saw an opportunity to expand the idea into a highly charged gun blazing blockbuster. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. On the contrary I believe his Terminator 2 is amongst the greatest movies ever made. But Terminator series was his own creation and he made it that way. It was his child to mould as he pleased. This was not. Here I was hoping to see a sequel which would continue the story Scott set out to tell, a kind of story which would encourage philosophical discussions.

I enjoyed the movie for other reasons, though I could not help but feel a little disappointed. I came out of it thinking that Cameron was not capable of delivering a movie that could amaze holding the same concepts the original did. He could have easily retained all the gun fighting and flame throwing but may have dotted the plot with a bit of discussion related to the origin of the species, the engineer species, or anything logical and reasonable he could come up with. If he thought this was not possible, he could have at least addressed the issues by putting the words into the mouth of some character so we would have known that the characters are thinking the same thing but had their hands full.