Aliens: Altogether Thrilling and Chilling

The distant moon was cold and hostile, a wind-swept ball of gray dust amidst the cosmos. Even its name, LV-426, gave off no warmth whatsoever. 57 years after Ellen Ripley survived the malevolent alien lifeform aboard the doomed freighter Nostromo before going into cryosleep, she's found by a salvage team in deep space due to blind luck, the will of God, or some combination of both. Imagine her horror when she hears that a colony had been established on LV-426 and that beyond that, contact with it has been lost. When she's begged to go on a Colonial Marines investigatory mission to the moon as an advisor, she reluctantly agrees - with one catch. If and when they find the creatures, they're not going to bring them back. They're not going to study them. No, they're going to exterminate every last one of them because if what she says about the creatures is true, then there can be no scientific research to be had and no room for mercy to be given. If what she says about the creatures is true, this time, it's war.

James Cameron did with Aliens the same thing he would eventually do with Terminator 2, and it worked like a charm both times. Aliens is similar to Ridley Scott's 1978 hit film that preceded it in many ways, yet simultaneously, undeniably distinct. Where Scott was committed to mixing science fiction and horror, Cameron crafted a horror-injected military actioner. One movie is about the doomed, beleaguered spacecraft Nostromo drifting in the far reaches of space. The other is about the rough and tough soldiers who would be more than happy to personally blow holes in whatever was plaguing it. This may fly over some heads, but Aliens invented a lot of military movie cliches, and though the dialogue may grate some people, I was drawn to the unapologetically gung-ho spirit of the soldiers. The get-some talk of the Marines is refreshingly old-fashioned and unabashedly cheesy. Aliens is not trying to be subtle, and it takes a tone I'd complain about in any other movie and embraces it so wholeheartedly that I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear.

Blending with breakneck action courtesy of our Marines is a timelessly effective horror element. Aliens holds a threat over your head for a long time before making good on it, doing a fantastic job of keeping the aliens its namesake relies on scary, even though and also because we already know what they're capable of. You won't see any Xenomorphs in this movie until about halfway through, but you'll feel their presence keenly. The motion tracker carried around by the soldiers is an intelligent addition, palpably ratcheting up the tension without actually having to show any aliens, patiently saving that particular horror for as long as it needs to. What's more, Aliens subverts your expectations and intelligently riffs on what could be the most horrifying element of the first film: the infamous robot Ash. Bishop is a synthetic science officer who seems kindly enough. Still, he's admittedly hard to trust because of the cold, clinical, and dangerous nature of Ash, leaving the possibility that the expedition force could be destroyed from the inside out wide open.

I love how thoroughly Aliens grasps its world. We're made to understand the geography of the moon complex, the things about it that benefit the soldiers, and the things about it that work against them. Some evident planning went into crafting the building, so despite a slow prologue, this movie rapidly picks up a head of steam as aliens practically begin popping out of the complex walls, and matters go from bad to worse faster than you can say that wasn't funny, man! Keeping the pacing taut, Aliens includes perhaps the mother of all countdowns, one threatening to do away with Ripley, Newt, the soldiers, and everything else within a state-sized radius if they can't find their way off the moon very, very soon. The memory of Aliens is also quite good, and the skills that Ripley and the others learn never go to waste, getting put to use in phenomenally impactful and exciting ways throughout. Aliens is such a roller coaster of highs and lows, victories and defeats. Its momentum is utterly unrelenting, its horrors suitably horrifying, and its action absolutely merciless. It simulates an onslaught unlike anything else from its time.

If the ultimate measure of a good movie was how many cliches it spawned, then Aliens might take the crown for "greatest movie ever made." Practically everything about it has become a trope, and for good reason. Like the first Alien, this movie is terrifying, though it's more than just that. Aliens is an adrenaline-laden thrill ride, the likes of which I've rarely seen matched by any other action movie. For its first half, it collects apprehension like a busy bee collecting pollen before magnificently lighting it on fire in the second half, releasing the tension like an out-of-control wildfire in the form of a relentless series of muscular firefights between the Colonial Marines and their insatiable alien enemies, one after another after another. Its blend of action and horror works impeccably well, and though nearly forty years old, Aliens still thrills and chills, as true a trendsetter as has ever been.

Aliens - 9/10

Isaiah 66:12-13