Rating: 
Summary: Decent action movie, inferior sequel
Review: James "I can find a way to make bigger budget movies than anybody" Cameron put together a nice gore fest here, but that's about it as far as I'm concerned. Aliens is just bigger - bigger weapons, more crew members, more and bigger aliens, big explosions, bigger gore; you get the point. And people talk about the first one taking so long to get started, but what about this one! The expanded edition is over 150 minutes, and by the time the body parts and gore start flying it seems like it's warn itself out. It takes soooooooooo long for Ripley to even make the decision to go back, which is crazy to begin with. And when she does go back all we get is a big budget sequence exactly like the first one with the crew waking up and meandering about. Except this time they're not nearly characterized so well - they're just straight from some comic book with paper-thin tenacity and transparent toughness. So then everybody stands around shooting their mouths off and flexing muscles. Then in a disaster of a scene, Ripley tries to brief them on what they're going to encounter. Nobody takes her seriously; they make fun of her, and even the guy leading the squadron stands around like a big jerk running the mouth and smoking his cigar. Then all of a sudden they land on LB-426 and it takes sooooooooo long to even find the aliens. More standing around, more running the mouth, more flexing muscles. Then bullets start flying, alien/human body parts go whizzing past the camera, acid burns people's skin off, and most of the crew gets wiped out in the first encounter. Oddly, Bill Paxton's hideously annoying character is about the only one left to get killed, and it takes way too long for that to happen. I don't honestly see where all the suspense is - who actually thought Ripley was going to die in the explosion in the end? Who didn't see the potential for a likely romance between Ripley and Hicks? - he wasn't going to get killed. Who thought after the bonding between Ripley and Newt that the latter was going to be killed by the hulking alien in the end? And most of all, who didn't see that remake ending of the first one? - just a bigger alien (more money to build it) on a bigger ship (more money to build it too). I liked the first one's terseness and "that thing's running around in here with us" atmosphere along with the way it was put together so much more. But Aliens is a decent action movie for gore lovers.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the easily frightened!
Review: This has to be one of the most terrifying and creepy action films ever made. The special effects won an acadamy award, Sigourney Weaver was nominated for best actress, and the script was flawless. Everything about this film was superior! But if you are like me, one who is too affected by eery films, I'd pass it up! That should tell you how phenomenal it is!
Rating:
Summary: An excellent combination of action and Sci-fi
Review: "Aliens" sucessfully combines action and sci-fi to create one of the best films for both genres. I was impressed with the action and the story, action films seldomly have a story. James Cameron does an extrordinary job of maintaining the tension, once the movie gets going it doesn't let up. Sigourney Weaver gives a tough, convincing performance as Ellen Ripley. This film is without a doubt the best film in the "Alien" series and one of the best Sci-fi/Action movies around.
Rating:
Summary: 14 years later, it's still the best. The SE is even better!
Review: Let me start by saying this, if you haven't seen this movie you've missed out on one of the true originals. I know it's a sequel but nevertheless it has set a standard in the industry which has yet to be surpassed. In all sci-fi movies I now watch I see how many references/rip-offs/tributes I can tally, the number has never been under seven. The fact that 14 years later it is still the best, most effective, and without a doubt the scariest alien genre film produced for the screen makes it my favorite film. In James (best visual effects Oscar) Cameron's epic sequel to the 1979 classic Aliens, Lt. Ripley returns, frozen, 57 years later to Gateway Station orbiting earth. "The company" investigates the loss of the cargo ship in the first film, which she destroys to kill the alien, and of course they think she's crazy when she tells them stories of aliens that gestate in human hosts and have acid for blood. They revoke her flight status, effectively ruining her career. Visited by nightmares that leave her in a cold sweat every single night, it is clear the demons are not gone and she is racked with a need for retribution and closure. After losing contact with a "shake and bake" colony Ripley is approached by a representative of the company, Carter Burke, and the colonial marines. They want her to return to LB427 and advise the team of elite marines going in. At first she is reluctant, rude even, but the promise of a reinstated flight status and her recurring dream proves too much and she agrees to go. Once there they discover every single colonist missing, "Whatever happened here I think we missed it". After a bit of technical know-how is utilized the colonists are located and they discover the terrifying truth. In the issuing battle most of the team is lost and Ripley is left to organize what's left and find a way out, but the aliens prove to be much smarter than anticipated, cutting them off at every turn. On top of that it is revealed that Burke has double-crossed Ripley in the name of millions of dollars. In Roger Ebert's 1986 review he said, "I have never seen a movie that maintains such a pitch of intensity for so long". Almost the entire last half of this film is pure action, and some of the best ever put on film. In an interview on the DVD edition, which I highly recommend, James (I can spend more money than you) Cameron said something like, I think too many puppeteers focus on details and forget that the most important thing is movement. People need very few pixels to recognize a human, but movement makes it - real, and that's what's scary. That single, yet all-important knowledge made it possible to film this movie with only six costumes (you'll be amazed when you realize this as you watch), and made it possible to create creatures so believable there hasn't been an original alien design since. Transporting us to another world, this film makes us forget we are in our comfortable homes with a warm sweater and buttery popcorn. Instead we feel the panic of the terrified marines as countless aliens leap and screech, it makes us feel the pure adrenaline-pumped primal need to survive under all circumstances. Notable performances include Sigourney Weaver, who was nominated for best actress. Paul Raiser, giving a standard-setting performance as the corporate slime. Michael Biehn, in the classic yet somehow not tired role of the exhausted I've-seen-too-much team leader. The film was nominated by the Academy or won in the following categories: Best Actress, Art Direction, Film Editing, Score, Sound, Sound Effects Editing and of course - Visual Effects.
Rating:
Summary: POSSIBLY THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE
Review: I will be quick, also'couse there are about other 300 reviews in here: If you didn't watch this movie never show your face in a movie theater or video store again...you should NOT be watching movies, you dont deserve it!
Rating:
Summary: Get away from her
Review: Not so much a sequel to 'Alien' as an alternative take on a similar idea, this is the finest action / sci-fi film of the 80's. Coming back to it after all this time it's surprising to note that it is a proper science-fiction film, and not just an action film with a vague futuristic backdrop - the technology seems real, the glimses of futuristic society seem genuine, and it hasn't dated in the slightest. 'Aliens' has all the James Cameron trademarks - flashy cinematography featuring acres of monochrome lighting, an epic length, a fetish for technology, and Bill Paxton. Despite being over two hours long it flies by - after a long build-up, the film is more or less constant action, and it even takes some time to say something deep-but-vague about family and motherhood and so forth. Sigourney Weaver makes a perfect action heroine, being tough but recognisably human - whereas other films would either make her wimpish and compromised, or go the other way and make her an invicible, high-kicking 'manga babe', here Ripley is just a normal person in an abnormal situation, who happens to be a woman. The subtle-but-obvious romance with the brave, injured Lieutenant Hicks is handled extremely well, too - making the opening of 'Alien 3' all the more jarring. The characters are all stereotypes from WW2 films (Bill Paxton's initially-braggardy marine looks forward to getting home from the wars, and the moment he does so you just know that he is marked for death), but they work, and the acting is uniformly solid. The music deserves a mention, too - it uses a couple of cues from Jerry Goldsmith's 'Alien' music, and James Horner's alternately ambient, Wagnerian score was so good that he used bits for a decade or more afterwards. Surprisingly, the 'extra bits' are quite sparce - apart from the extra footage from the special edition, there are trailers and an interview with James Cameron, but not much else.
Rating:
Summary: Underscores the crispness of the editing in the original.
Review: Aliens: a great action-adventure movie in a decade that defined the modern action-adventure movie. Any of the multitude of reviews here will wax enthusiastic on the movie's quality--so, what about =this= particular edition? For me, the extra 17 minutes underscored how tight and well-done the film was =without= those minutes. For example, some exposition was added about Ripley's daughter. For some, this added exposition enhanced the later bond between Ripley and Newt. Setting aside for a moment the incompatibility between the deepspace-travel-with-cryogenic-freezing and the idea that she told her daughter she would be home in less than a year, what I was really impressed with was exactly how good a job the actors did conveying their bond =without= the exposition. Stuff like that abounds. The seventeen minutes that were edited came from all over the film in tiny bits, so that very often you have to double-check to make =sure= it wasn't there. Ultimately, whether the movie is better or worse with the extra footage is a matter of subtleties. However, this is definitely a good DVD/home theater type film. The clarity of the picture and the depth of sound does justice to the original theatrical experience. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated series!
Review: Almost everybody I know who's seen this movie loved it. But I have to be honest...this movie is so totally boring, I almost fell asleep when I saw it. And what's the point with letting this movie last for 2 1/2 hours. What a total waste of time. I haven't seen the first one, but the third wasn't so bad. The only thing which is keeping me from rating this movie 1 star, is the killing of Bishop (Lance Henriksen).
Rating:
Summary: Best action thriller ever
Review: I am not an action movie man. I am not a sci-fi movie man either. Still, »Alien« was my favourite movie so I had to watch the sequel. And »Aliens« is by far the best action movie I have ever seen! It is very rare that one movie succeeds in combining action, thrills, emotions, and even a little humor with an exciting story, a well-written script, good acting and very successful special effects. »Aliens« does! So, no matter what your taste in movies is, you are well off buying »Aliens«.
Rating:
Summary: THIS TIME IT'S WAR!
Review: "I got readings! I got readings front and behind!" There is little doubt what my personal favorite movie of 1986 is, and if you're reading this it should be pretty obvious. James Cameron's Aliens was such a departure from Ridley Scott's 1979 Alien in that it was a wholly different film. In its essence Alien was a haunted house in space, whereas Aliens was an action thriller, with both thriving on the one thing that scares us most - fear of the unknown. Scott did this by providing us with the house, in the case, the USCSS Nostromo, and the haunt- the Alien, the preceded to scare the hell out of us with it. In Aliens Cameron ups the ante- this time there are several aliens and the humans have guns. As the trailer said- "This time it's war!" "We're on an express elevator to hell: Goin' down!" Aliens takes up where Alien left off with Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in hypersleep aboard the escape shuttle, Narcisis, who has been adrift for fifty-seven years. Rescued by a deep-space salvage team she is returned to Earth where she meets Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), an executive with Wayland-Yutani, the company that sent the Nostromo to investigate the derelict alien craft in the first all those years ago. It's Burke's job to see that Ripley adjusts well to her new environment before throwing her at the mercy of the board of executives for her to explain why she blew up their expensive ship. Demanding an explanation, Ripley learns that the planet the crew of the Nostromo found the ship has been colonized and that the colonists found nothing. "We've lost contact with the colonists on LV-426." Dispatched with the US Colonial Marine Corps aboard the space battleship Sulaco, Ripley finds herself thrust back into her original nightmare against the creatures that slaughtered her crew. The colony has been wiped out and the colonists missing, all the while the marines are finding more and more evidence that backs up Ripley's original claim. And when the marines locate the colonists, all of whom are dead having served as hosts for new aliens, Ripley gains their respect when she singlehandedly rescues them. Weaver received an Academy Award nomination for her role as Ripley, but as we all know, science fiction movies never win non-technical awards. She gains the attention of Corporal Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn), but being competent, and the later the respect of the surviving marines. "Newt, wake up, we're in trouble!" Cameron expertly builds tension through out the film as the humans realize they are fighting a losing battle against their alien antagonizers. It becomes much more than a monster movie where the creatures pick off members of the cast one at a time until there are only a few left since most of the marines are killed in the debacle in the atmosphere processor. Instead, Cameron relies on things that go bump in the night, such as the sequence where Ripley wakes up after some much needed sleep only to discover that the traitoress Burke has placed two face hugger parasites in the room. As they scuttle about unseen, Ripley and Newt (Carrie Heine) must find away to escape. Cameron also makes good use of lighting in the film wherein he changes the look of his sets simply by changing his light sources. "Let's rock!" Most importantly the pace of the film is unrelenting, and I personally feel this is his best work.(Yeah, yeah, 'Titanic'? Who cares.) I remember how I felt after I saw the film on opening night during a warm June evening in 1986, I was so pumped with adrenaline that I could hardly keep still. I welcomed the nightmares, because I knew James Cameron was directing them. What is striking about this film is its technical brilliance which lends itself to every aspect of the movie- sets, special effects, characters, and atmosphere. Made at a time when films were beginning to creep into the stratospheric budget range, Cameron pulled Aliens together for $18 million, but considering how good the film looks, it comes across as being much more expensive than it really was. I also wish he would return to this style of film making, because the Aliens/Terminator stuff is what he's best at. "I say we dust off and nuke the site from orbit- it's the only way to be sure."
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