Rating: 
Summary: "This Time It's War!"
Review: This movie was excellent.The best out of the trilogy.The portrayal of the Colonial Space Marines was by far the most realistic depiction of "grunts" I've ever seen,and was right on the money.It reminded me of my time in the service even though this was Sci-fi.I've read that a Director's Cut is in the works and will show the cocooning of Apone & Deitrich.We shall see.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Movie....
Review: but there are plenty of reviews here telling you that and also telling you why it's such a wonderful movie. So I don't think you'll mind if I respond to one of the folks that left a review. Jason Reynolds III of Houston, TX, man, when you wrote that review what were you thinking? Did you watch Alien and Aliens all the way through? From beginning to end? Because if you did, my friend, you'd know that there was no way in hell you would be able to reason with these creatures. So what if they followed some ancient religion that required they kill any species not their own? I follow a very ancient religion, as do a few other people I know, and it's called survival of the fittest. Fine, these aliens want to kill me for their religion. It's their right to try but nobody is gonna tell me that I have to be politically correct and just let some aliens kill me. And if you think Ripley or those Marines were going to think anything different than trying to stay alive, you are nuts! Ripley, nor any of her crew in the first movie or the second, tried to harm these creatures. The first move was made against them and they were knocked off one by one. The alien itself in the first movie never tried to communicate with the people. That road goes both ways, buddy. And when one's life is in danger, especially if it were me, I'm not gonna waste much of my time being politically correct. I'm gonna save my butt and ask questions later. Ripley was only trying to survive and protect people she cared about. Survival of the fittest, my friend, that's what these movies are about. Keep the politics to yourself. :)
Rating:
Summary: He can't make that decision, he's only a grunt
Review: Before the overblown Titanic and True Lies, James Cameron was a genre film-maker with few peers. The taut tension of his first Terminator movie made him a natural to have a stab at one of SF's great monsters. And this time, as the title suggests, there are more than one of them. As in the first movie of the series, it all starts quietly. Ripley wakes in an orbiting hospital facility to find she has been rescued from her "lifeboat", having spent fifty-seven years in hypersleep. The Company blame her for the loss of the Nostromo, and she is stripped of her officer's license. Humiliated, and bothered by nightmares, she is reduced to running "loaders" (futuristic fork lifts which cover your body like a mechanical suit) in the space docks. That is until Burke, a company man, arrives at her door to tell her they have lost contact with a terra-forming colony on the planet she first encountered the alien. Ripley is persuaded to join a mission to the planet, alongside Burke and a troop of bad-ass marines. There are some great SF interiors in the ship, and the marines have suitably bashed and battered weaponry, while still looking sufficiently futuristic, but the film drags along for a bit at this stage, with too much exposition and not enough action. But that all changes when they reach the planet. They find a deserted colony, the rooms and walkways showing signs of a violent struggle. The only survivor is a young girl, "Newt", who becomes Ripley's surrogate child. (Incidentally, the special edition of the DVD has an early scene reinstated that explains why Ripley forms such a strong attachment to Newt, and is well worth watching for an insight into Ripley's state of mind.) When the colonists PDTs (Personal Data Transmitters) are all found to be broadcasting from an area under one of the cooling towers, the stage is set for a series of mind-blowing action sequences. At their first encounter the Marines get overrun by the Aliens ("In case you haven't been paying attention, we just got our a**es kicked."), then their escape craft crashes, leaving them stranded on a site that is in danger of exploding. They retreat to a sealed compound to consider their options. (Again, the Director's cut has added scenes here, where heavily armed robot sentries keep the Aliens at bay at the compound perimeter.) From here on in its a roller-coaster of climaxes till the end - Ripley and Newt are trapped in a locked room with two face-huggers (released by company man Burke to try to get an alien embryo back to Earth); the Aliens break into the compound for a climactic battle; Burke gets what's coming to him; Newt is taken by the Aliens; Ripley fights to get her back and, finally, we get to find out where the Alien eggs come from. Ripley's stand off with the Alien Queen is one of the great images in modern SF and you'll be gripping your seat with tension long before the ending. Sigourney Weaver carries this movie, dusting off her action heroine credentials once more, and is ably assisted by Michael Beihn and Lance Henrickson. But as in all monster movies. it's the monster that's the important thing, and the special effects people can take great credit from this movie - the Aliens are among the best screen creatures ever created and the Queen is a work of art, like some warped dinosaur skeleton painted in high gloss black and brought to life to stalk our nightmares. Whereas Ridley Scott made a great SF movie in "Alien", Cameron has made a great action movie. The last hour of this film contains enough tension, emotion and excitement to leave you rung out by the end. I recommend you watch it on a big screen with the volume turned up to eleven and let it take you away for a while. Just don't leave before the credits - there might be another climax yet to come.
Rating:
Summary: Great Film, Very Poor Sociopolitical Message
Review: This was a terrific action flick with a great plot and tremendous actors -- it's a classic, even better than the first "Alien." Having said that, I have to point out that I was repelled by the socio-political message this movie sends. A team of US Colonial Marines is sent to a colony to kill alien beings there. No one mentioned the possibility of involving other nations, of obtaining approval from the United Nations for unilaterally attacking these aliens. And the diplomatic effort was absolutely non-existent, no effort whatever was made to deal reasonably with these aliens, to give them a chance to stand down and cease their hostilities. At no point did the US characters ever ask, "Why do they hate us?" While it's true an alien killed every member of Ripley's Nostromo crew without any warning whatever, a stunning surprise attack that terrorized the crew during a meal, there were no follow-up efforts to negotiate any sort of peace with the creature -- they just unilaterally decided to kill it, as was the case with a group of these alien beings in the sequel. After the first attack on the Nostromo, everyone should have simply turned the page and moved on. After all, what's passed is past, it's old news. In the sequel, there was no patience or diplomacy whatever in dealings with the aliens, the crew simply attacked and attempted to kill all of them they could. What if the aliens were driven by an ancient religion that required them to kill all the members of any other species they encountered? Who were these Marines, to question that cultural ideal? The message this sends about such creatures is that the only way to stop them is to kill them, or they will always be striving to kill you. The Marines should have done some yoga instead, and asked themselves again and again, "Why do they hate us?" They at least should have sent in some inspectors -- and if that failed, they should have given the inspections more time to work. Nothing in the world will deter terrorism more effectively than giving inspections more time to work.
Rating:
Summary: Aliens (1986)
Review: Just when U thought it was safe 2 go back in 2 space. Sigourney Weaver returns as RIPLEY who awakens from hyper sleep 57 years after she destroyed the hideous alien. Paul Reiser is in the role of BURKE, a seemingle nice young man who wants RIPLEY 2 join a high-tech team who will B going 2 LV 46, where she battled the firt alien. On this planet are at least 60-75 families of colonists. The colonists' signals abruptly stop. RIPLEY at first does not want 2 go. But in order 4 her 2 end her nightmares of the alien, she must go and battle the creature again. But this time, she is not fighting just one alien; she is fight millions at one time. Michael Biehn delivers an outstanding performance in the role of CPL. HICKS. Lance Henriksen is amazing in the role of the good-hearted android, BISHOP. Carrie Henn is in the role of the adorable NEWT. Bill Paxton stars as HUDSON, the annoying ut comical PVT. William Hope stars as GORMAN, one of the team's leaders. Jenette Goldstein gives a wonerful peformance as the tough PVT. VASQUEZ. ALIENS makes a perfect follow-up 2 1979's ALIEN.
Rating: 
Summary: They mostly come out at night, mostly
Review: Aliens picks up from where Alien left off. When Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, returns to Earth after her harrowing incident with the alien from the original movie, she has her piloting license revoked, and is soon coached into going back to the horrible planet where her ship had picked up their alien cargo, only this time she is accompanied by a complete squad of mercenaries. Their mission is to rescue any survivors from a settlement trying to terraform the planet. Ripley comes along to act as an adviser to as how best to handle the issue if an alien pops up.
However the place is empty. The mercenaries press on into the colonist facility where they find a little girl, who has been hiding from the alien menace.
In one of the labs, they find evidence that the egg creatures that laid the Alien's eggs had been captured and studied. Only two of the specimens survived.
Ripley and the little girl, who likes to be called Newt, return to base, while the armed men, and woman, continue even further. This is when things go wrong. The team is attacked, and only a few make it out. The survivors desperately call for their gunship to pick them up, unfortunately, the pilot gets slaughtered by one of the aliens.
And so the movie continues, with more and more charachters being killed off. The robot like dude has to go and call the second gunship down from their ship, while the rest hold the fort. This is when Ripley realises the guy who convinced her to come was not there to wipe out, but to smuggle some of the monsters out by infecting Newt with the funny egg layer things. Of course, he meets his maker.
The whole comes to an end with a great fight between Ripley and the Alien Queen, a monstrously large alien who lays all the little eggs, and can barely move because of her egg-laying organs. However, she eventually rips that off and follows the four survivors.
I enjoyed the extra footage, I didn't even know it wasn't there originally.
Slotted into the movie was a fantastic line from Newt, 'They mostly come out at night, mostly.' Thew line has been made fun of in heaps of shows I watch regurlarly, including the South Park episode entitle, 'Cat Orgy'.
I would have to give this an A, with Alien and A +.
Rating:
Summary: Excitement with a capital E!
Review: This is a totally different film from Alien. While Alien is more like the classic sci-fi/horror films of the 1950's (The Thing from Another World immediately comes to mind), Aliens is a classic sci-fi/action adventure. Not nearly as scary as the Ridley Scott classic, it is nonetheless a superior movie. The action and suspense never stops. The 17 added minutes, previously only available on laser disc and one of several VHS releases, never should've been deleted in the first place. This and Alien should be at or near the top of your "Must Get" sci-fi DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: This was actually supposed to the last movie of the series..
Review: In 1986, when James Cameron gave interviews to promote the movie, he said at the time that "Aliens brings the story full circle and ends." It was then supposed to be the only sequal to the Alien film that was planned. Needless to say that it was not the case. They have done two more movies since then, but they all seem to fall short of the 1986 movie. James Cameron took a nod to Steven Speilberg when he did JAWS. Make it as a horror movie, but put a good cast and a fair amount of humor, adventure, and humanity to the roles and you have got a good movie. That what genrally seperates Aliens from the other movies in the series. It was much better done and Cameron made it as a movie that was set in it's own universe, and not directly connected with the first movie, nor the thrid and fourth movies for that matter.
The two performers who really carry the movie are Sigorney Weaver and Carrie Hein, they play a mother/daughter relationship with such humanity that it really carries the whole story from start to finish. Just as they did four Superman and Batman movies (but only one film in each series was any good) then Aliens was the only good movie in this series. Watch this and ignore the rest.
Rating:
Summary: Aliens - The Best Of The Series
Review: The sequel to the 1979 horror hit, "Alien", is awesome. "Aliens" is not a standard horror flick. Instead, it is more of a horror/sci-fi/war movie. I thought this movie was the best of the series. Everyone enjoyed the first one. I thought it was good. Everyone hated the 3rd one. I hated it too. Everyone thought the 4th one was okay. I did too. Yet, "Aliens" stands out. Plot - Ripley (Weaver) wakes up from hyper-sleep many years after her attack with an alien. She learns from researchers, including a young Paul Reiser, that LV-426 has been colonized. After communication is lost with the colony, Ripley decides that it isn't a good sign. She, a bunch of marines (including Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, and others), and a robot (Lance Henriksen) are sent to the planet to see what happened. They get there and find the only survivor, Newt. The whole group learns that the aliens have taken over LV-426. After their ship explodes, they realize they have to fight back to stay alive. (99/100) Acting - The acting is outstanding for this movie. We have stars galore in this movie. Yet, you will probably only notice the two scene stealers, Paul Reiser and Bill Paxton. Paul Reiser does a good job as the complex researcher with a hidden agenda. Bill Paxton is more favorite. He's the tough, cussing, hilarious marine. (95/100) Effects - The effects were very good in this movie. If you see "Alien Resurrection", you will definitely tell the difference between the alien's looks in this movie. The aliens look more real though. I thought that was cool. Also, the ending with the Alien Queen fighting Ripley was amazing! (93/100) Action - The action is top notch for this movie. This movie takes awhile to get started (I think 45 minutes), but it is worth the wait. The rest of the movie is all action. (97/100) Gore - This movie isn't too gory. I mean people do die horrible deaths. Yet, for a horror movie, it doesn't really use it. I thought it was a cool idea. (97/100) Rated R for extremely strong violence, some gore, and very strong language.
Rating:
Summary: Good sequel but doesn't top the original!
Review: I agree that for a sheer "thrill rush", "Aliens" is hard to beat. However, the first film still has more tension and terror for my money to make IT the better film. Subtlety, the strength of Scott's movie, always works better than an all-ought frontal assault as Cameron's film possesses. Besides the eye-popping visuals and the alien make-up, much of the second installment's strengths lie in the performances of Weaver (reprising her role as the first film's sole survivor, Ellen Ripley), Lance Henrikson as "Bishop" the android, Bill Paxton as a macho private that learns the meaning of fear, and Jenette GOLDSTEIN as a HISPANIC soldier. The latter is so believable as a "Latina" that one would think she hailed from Puerto Rico. If "Aliens" had not been in the sci-fi category, a nomination for a "Best Supporting Actress" Oscar may have been bestowed upon Goldstein. Everyone knows that "The Academy" only has a fondness for "costume dramas" or "period pieces".
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