Must-See May Day #5: Aliens (1986)

I don't envy any director tasked with the job of making a sequel to a classic movie. It can be incredibly hard to get right, and finding that balance of sticking to the original and twisting the formula is frustratingly tricky to do correctly. Thankfully, Aliens (1986) handles this wonderfully, and it might even surpass the original in many ways. Starring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, Michael Biehn as Corporal Dwayne Hicks, Paul Reiser as Carter Burke, Lance Henriksen as Bishop, Carrie Henn as Rebecca "Newt" Jordan, Bill Paxton as Private Hudson, William Hope as Lieutenant Gorman, Jenette Goldstein as Private Vasquez and Al Matthews as Sergeant Apone.

Aliens (1986)

The main difference between Alien and Aliens is the scale. Alien took place on a commercial spaceship with a crew of 7 people. Aliens takes place on an outpost colony with a population in the hundreds and corps of roughly 20 people who get sent in. Aliens has the advantage of being higher-stakes, and there are also slightly more varied locations and set-pieces. Everything about this movie just seems bigger when compared to the original, but I'd argue that they never overdo it. It's just the right balance where it feels hopeless enough whilst keeping some light at the end of the tunnel to keep the hope alive. There's also a slight genre tweak in this film. Interestingly, whilst Terminator was a horror movie disguised as an action movie, this feels like an action movie disguised as a horror movie. There are still a lot of horror elements in this film, but the setting, tone and characters make it feel more like an action movie, which suits this movie much better.

Sigourney Weaver as Ripley and Carrie Henn as Newt

I say the characters make this feel like an action movie because on the surface a lot of the supporting cast feel a little one-dimensional at first. They have their archetypes and they play into them rather nicely, but we also spend just enough time with certain people to get to know them a little better. The drawback here is we can tell which people are likely to survive longer since they're the ones that get the focus, but they actually subvert this a little bit in ways I can't go into without spoilers. Suffice it to say, the film makes you care about these characters, and that's also because the acting here is top-notch. Michael Biehn is becoming one of my favourite action movie stars after his repeat performance from Terminator into this film, and Paul Reiser was glorious in his role. Bill Paxton's character in particular had a great journey in this movie, and Carrie Henn did fantastically for a child actor.

Michael Biehn as Hicks

Another big bonus for this film were the aliens, or Xenomorphs, themselves. While the alien looked great in the previous film, here the aliens look spectacular. I don't know if it was a bigger budget or the fact that they had an additional 7 years of newer practical effects technology to take advantage of, but it's all wonderful to look at. I never felt like I was looking at someone in a costume, like I did sometimes in the previous movie. These looked like actual aliens, and as a result they're even more terrifying here than they were previously. Additionally, and these didn't happen often, but whenever there was a shot in space of a spaceship, it looked significantly better than it did in the original. Again, 7 years of advanced effects, but the models in the original always looked like models. Here they look like real spaceships in space, and the opening shot specifically blew my mind compared to the first movie.

A Xenomorph

Now, there's one last point I need to make, and it is an important one. Initially I was hesitant about them adding lots and lots of Xenomorphs into this movie. On paper it sounds great: one Alien took forever to kill, how will they survive multiple Aliens? But the thing is that usually when a series does this, they either make the threats easier to kill or buff the human survivors to compensate, and they did that here. The heavy arsenal the soldiers had in this movie was making short work of the Xenomorphs compared to the hopelessness of the previous when the cargo ship had no such artillery. And I thought it was going to be a problem, but surprisingly, it wasn't. Even though the humans had more on their side, they still found a way to make the alien hordes legitimately threatening and terrifying. I don't know how they pulled it off, maybe it was the additions to the Xenomorph lore, maybe it was the sheer number of Xenomorphs, but it worked, and what I thought was going to be my only criticism of the movie ended up being yet another strength. Kudos.

Paul Reiser as Carter Burke

Yeah, I said it. It was going to be my only criticism. Aliens (1986) is an almost perfect movie, and it certainly deserve the acclaim it gets. I've heard that the franchise takes a colossal nosedive from here, so I'm not looking forward to watching the rest of these films as the month goes on, but even still, I've found another movie in my "I'll be watching this again and again and again" catalogue. Just amazing. 10/10.

Tomorrow: The Hunger Games begin.