Aliens is the sequel to Alien in which Sigourney Weaver's Ripley is coerced by her old company to assist some space marines in investigating why a colony of people have vanished from the planet where Ripley's crew initially found the alien. When the marines arrive, things almost immediately go bad as the entire colony has been used by the aliens to breed. They find one little girl who has survived despite all the odds but will any of them make it off this planet overrun by the terrifying creatures?
Aliens actually works in the same way Die Hard and Predator work, the potentially huge cast is quickly narrowed down after the initial massacre. We are left with a small group of strong characters who must work together in hopes of getting out alive. Also, like those other two movies, this works as an action movie above all else. There are moments of horror (the alien rising up behind Newt in the sewer, the pinging of the alert that says the aliens are in the room when nothing is moving) but the movie functions as a bleak war movie with sci-fi and horror elements. Very few people seen at the beginning of the movie are seen at the end.
Aliens is one of my favorite films of all time. It is pretty much pure plot and that is fine. There is a running thread of Ripley looking to replace her lost daughter with Newt but that's as heavy as it gets. Paul Reiser, Michael Biehn, Lance Henrikssen and Bill Paxton all deliver strong performances that help elevate the material.
I can't recommend this for horror fans but i can recommend it for fans of good movies.
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