Aliens | Film Review | Slant Magazine

FILM MOVIE REVIEW

Aliens **½

by Ed Gonzalez on December 15, 2003 Jump to Comments (2) or Add Your Own

Buy on Amazon:

Video
Soundtrack

After Piranha Part Two: The Spawning, James Cameron scored a major hit with the nihilist action flick The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, so it made sense then that he was brought on to direct the sequel to Alien. Cruder than the original, Aliens is a distinctly greedy mega-production. For sure, there's only so many times you can tell the same story and rewrite the same set pieces: Because the film's human melodramas play second fiddle to the kick-ass action sequences, it's obvious that 20th Century Fox wanted to bank on the success of the original film.

Some time after its release, Alien began to develop a following among feminists, confirmed when one of my film school professors would frequently reference the set design's phallic and vaginal imagery. But it's Ripley's (Sigourney Weaver) battle to be heard by the film's alpha males and mother ship that truly resonates today. This mostly subtextual war of the sexes is on whorish display throughout Aliens: the mother alien is referred to as a "badass" by Bill Paxton's insufferable Hudson; Ripley's cigar-chomping sergeant doesn't think she can do anything; and the tough, eager-to-please Latina lesbian who calls Ripley "Snow White" is teased for looking like a man.

After floating in space for 57 years, Ripley is picked up by a salvage ship and is treated like a rape victim by a money-minded conglomerate. After her feminine insight gets the better of everyone, she helps spearhead a mission back to the alien planet after the ship loses contact with its colonists. Plot holes abound, but more tragic is the sorry lot of archetypical characters a fierce Ripley has to rub shoulders with; you can tell exactly in what order everyone will die depending on how nondescript, polite, hysterical, or evil the characterization.

Aliens is a "guy movie" through and through, right down to the "get away from her, you bitch" female-on-female violence (Cameron, David Giler, and Walter Hill must have been watching Dynasty while writing their screenplay). The director's cut of the film hauntingly amplifies Ripley's disconnect from her dead daughter and her relationship to the young Newt (essentially a substitute for her creepy pet cat). Otherwise, the film's human interactions are nowhere near as interesting as Cameron's deft direction of action and use of non-alien space (the "Remote Sentry Weapons" killing spree may be Cameron's finest moment).

Director(s): James Cameron
Screenplay: James Cameron, David Giler, Walter Hill
Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton, William Hope, Jenette Goldstein, Al Matthews, Mark Rolston, Ricco Ross
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Runtime: 154 min.
Rating: R
Year: 1986

Comments

FattTony on February 8, 2010, 01:00 AM: Hmm...a review that I can only describe as 'unexpected'...and maybe 'odd' as well...Were you truly so unaffected by the visceral style, incredible design, strong performances, quotable dialogue and the sheer unrelenting tension of this film that all you could see were plot holes (I confess that I have a problem with the premise that everyone conveniently forgets to seal off the air ducts), unsavoury (to you) sexual subtext and supporting characters that (admittedly) may have been slightly less-than-complex? Why do the human interactions have to be AS interesting as the action, anyway? I think they're plenty interesting ENOUGH for the type of film it is..."you can tell exactly in what order everyone will die depending on how nondescript, polite, hysterical, or evil the characterization"...??? This sounds like the reaction of a very jaded individual—or possibly just someone who didn't get hooked on the film when they were young and impressionable! Maybe when I get to your age I'll agree that Aliens doesn't hold up over time, but for now, I think it's still a killer and a classic, and that Avatar will be lucky to be half as well-regarded 24 years from now!
No-Personality on May 27, 2010, 05:48 PM: I have to agree with FattTony here, between the underwhelming credit (if any) you begrudgingly give Aliens and Eric Henderson's way too flattering review of the deeply nauseating Titanic...I feel like something's either missing, gotten lost, or been improperly shifted here. I don't even like sci-fi action epics and this one kicked my ass. I only mention that because...nothing else does.