It\u2019s a funny thing I had never seen Aliens in its entirety until today.\u00a0 Somehow, I missed the first half hour of the movie and only came in when the main action was beginning.\u00a0 So finally, I have the correct basis on which to judge it.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t synopsize the plot because it\u2019s an Alien movie so the plot is for Sigourney Weaver to outlive the rest of her fellow humans battling the aliens before ultimately jettisoning a xenomorph into the vacuum of space.<\/p>\n
As in the original \u201cAlien\u201d movie Sigourney Weaver is Ellen Ripley a commercial astronaut who works for the evil Weyland-Yutani Corporation.\u00a0 Fifty-seven years after the first Alien attack Ripley is discovered still in suspended animation in the shuttle craft that she used to escape the destruction of her ship the Nostromo.<\/p>\n
The evil Weyland-Yutani Corporation was very unhappy about her blowing up their ship but when they find out that their terra-forming colony on the planet that the alien was found on has gone silent they send \u201cspace marines\u201d and Ripley to fix things.\u00a0 They also send Paul Reiser playing smarmy corporate yes man, Carter Burke to provide the requisite \u201cgreedy corporation wants xenomorph for bioweapon\u201d subplot.\u00a0 And finally, they throw in an android to show that despite what happened in the first movie, androids can be pretty swell people too.<\/p>\n
And finally, to soften up Ripley\u2019s Rambo impression, they throw in an orphaned little girl named Newt that Ripley rescues a few times over the course of the movie, proving that a modern woman truly can have it all.<\/p>\n
So, the producers pull out all the stops.\u00a0 Aliens are popping up everywhere in the industrial complex that serves as the venue for this first-person shooter game.\u00a0 Bits of aliens and \u201cmolecular acid\u201d are sprayed everywhere and one by one the marine platoon is picked off by the monsters.\u00a0 Until finally we\u2019re down to Ripley, Newt, android and the pick of the Marine crew, Corporal Dwayne Hicks played by the ever-popular Michael Biehn.\u00a0 But during the final rescue of Newt on the planet Hicks is wounded by molecular acid and from then on, all the heavy lifting is done by Ripley.\u00a0 Which she performs with panache, culminating in the above mentioned obligatory spacing of the mother alien (of course there\u2019s a mother alien).<\/p>\n
So, what did I think?\u00a0 Well, I have some quibbles.\u00a0 The plot contrives it that the marines can\u2019t use their heaviest weapons because the industrial plant is a \u201cthermonuclear\u201d power plant and if any of their explosive charges rupture a heat exchanger line the whole plant will detonate.\u00a0 Since it\u2019s a cinch that all the colonists (except Newt) are already dead why are they bothering to throw away their lives in this death trap.\u00a0 As Ripley so astutely recommended, \u201cI say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.\u00a0 It\u2019s the only way to be sure.\u201d\u00a0 Also, they overdid it with the strong female characters and weak male ones.\u00a0 Yeah, I know, I know.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with that.\u201d\u00a0 But honestly it is insulting and stupid.<\/p>\n
But taken all in all the movie does provide an exciting action-adventure\/science fiction\/horror experience.\u00a0 I won\u2019t claim it\u2019s my favorite but it is a worthy representative of its genre.\u00a0 I will give it a recommended status.<\/p>\n