Aliens (1986)
Contains spoilers!
If you like your horror's full of aliens, gun fights and lots of chasing, then this is the film for you. A classic 80's sci-fi horror, that gets by on well made creatures, good character development and a lot of dry wit.
It has some genuinely creepy scenes, a lot of character deaths and some fantastic alien designs.
Set in space you again (See Alien) follow Ripley, who after being picked up from deep space gets told she has slept for 57 years, the world she knows has changed considerably and humans have spread further across the galaxy.
After being stripped of her rank she finds herself loading docks until Burke, a member of the company, asks for her help with a lost colony on LV426.
Yes the same planet Ripley and her team landed on in the first movie when they encountered the Alien for the first time, the one she warned everyone about at the beginning. Finally convinced Ripley finds herself on a military mission to find these lost colonists.
In typical horror fashion, once the team has landed nothing goes right, firstly the only survivor seems to be a young girl, Newt, secondly the mission to recover the lost colonists only ends up with the marines finding the aliens instead which are a lot more in numbers than the first film, this is where the majority of the marines end up being killed, during a fire fight with the aliens.
The survivors then try to escape only for their dropship to crash, Burke to betray them as he tries to get Ripley and Newt infected by releasing the face huggers into their room and to top everything off the team have to escape before the whole colony blows up.
All this while trying to fight of hordes of Aliens that are trying to kill them.
The film ends when Newt gets caught by the Aliens and Ripley goes to rescue her, not only finding her but also the Queen Alien, who after chasing them out of the colony and onto their ship finally gets beat after being thrown out of the airlock.
The effects of the Aliens is still very good, they are creepy, very well designed and although there are lots more in this film than the first, still able to move around with an eerie grace just before they crawl out of some dark corner to attack. The music is tense and suits the mood of the film.
Although a tense sci-fi horror, this is still an 80s movie and so it does have an element of humour involved in the form of snappy one liners and a lot of heavy sarcasm. Instead of being off putting or cheesy, it adds to the well rounded marine characters and makes them sound more realistic.
The vehicular scenes can look a little fake but nothing that really detracts from the film.
The film also has a great sound effects, the main being the tracker system, adding it's own level of tenseness to the film.
It's a great film to watch if you like suspenseful sci-fi horrors with a nice humour level to ease the tension.
Best phrases/dialogue:
'Hey Ripley don't worry, me and my squad of ultimate bad-asses will protect you!'
'Ripley, she doesn't have bad dreams because she's just a piece of plastic!'
'I may be synthetic but I'm not stupid'
'Get away from her you bitch!'
'Somebody wake up Hicks'
Creepiest Scene:
During the search for the colonists under the cooling towers, an Alien comes out of the wall slowly and silently behind a marine.
Scenes to watch for:
On the dropship just before the marines land on the planet, where Hudson is running through the list of weapons.
The end fight scene with the Queen and Ripley in the Loader suit.
