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Sigourney Weaver takes on the terrifying alien hordes in Aliens |
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sigourney Weaver (Ellen Ripley), Michael Biehn
(Corporal Dwayne Hicks), Paul Reiser (Carter Burke), Lance Henriksen (Bishop),
Carrie Henn (Newt), Bill Paxton (Private Hudson), William Hope (Lieutenant
Gorman), Jenette Goldstein (Private Vasquez), Al Matthews (Sergeant Apone),
Mark Rolston (Private Drake)
When any list of greatest-sequels-ever-made is put together,
you get the familiar names: Godfather
Part II, Toy Story 2, The Empire Strikes Back – but no such list
is complete without James Cameron’s groundbreaking Aliens. In fact, Aliens is so bloody good no list of great
action films, science fiction films or even war films is complete without it.
Set 57 years after Alien,
Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is awakened from hypersleep and returns to Earth. Her
warnings of the hideous Alien threats on LV-426 go unheeded by the soulless
Weyland-Yutani company – until all contact is lost with the terraforming colony
there. At which point, company man Burke (Paul Reiser) recruits a troop of
marines to head to LV-426 on a rescue mission. However, the over-confident
marines find themselves on a devastated base with only one survivor, a
traumatised young girl called Newt (Carrie Henn), and are quickly out of their depth
fighting against a ferocious enemy whose tactics and motivations they don’t
understand.
Can this really only be the second large-scale movie James
Cameron ever made? The guy may be (allegedly) a demanding, perfectionist dick,
but you are left in no doubt of his mastery of genre film-making – or the
thematic depth and emotional weight he can bring to what in the hands of
thousands of other film-makers would have been a cheap-shock, monster-schlock
thriller. Aliens is quite simply
magnificent, one of the best Hollywood films you are likely to see. I’ve seen
it I don’t know how many times, but it never, ever loses its impact. It’s
always gripping, the action is always compelling and it never ever fails to
scare and thrill you.
Cameron’s trick is that he is so good at build-up. Nary a single Alien is seen on screen for the best part of an hour.
Instead Cameron invests time in establishing the characters and their
relationships. We begin to understand each of the marines as
individuals. We feel our empathy for Ripley grow as we discover she has lost
her daughter while in hypersleep, that she still feels traumatised by the
events she witnessed, but that she has a strength of character, integrity and
will that helps her weather the storms she has endured. You understand these
characters so well – and the world that they inhabit – that when they start
getting torn apart by slathering xenomorphs, it carries real weight and impact.

Then of course when things do kick off, it goes absolutely
mental. Not for nothing is poor Hudson (a career establishing performance of
bravado hiding fear from Bill Paxton) screaming “It’s game over man! GAME
OVER!” after the first foray into the Alien nest. Paxton by the way has a
perfect part in this film – every single line is endlessly quotable, largely
because of his pitch-perfect delivery (I love “What so you mean they cut the power? They’re ANIMALS
man!”), and despite being a cocky blow-hard, you end up loving him. Jenette
Goldstein is similarly excellent as an almost impossibly hard-as-nails marine –
she’s full of good advice, such as “Just nerve gas the whole fucking nest”.
The rest of the film is a helter-skelter of high octane,
perfectly paced action. Every single sequence in this film is a stand-out, with
stakes that feel impossibly high. Cameron really
understood just how terrifyingly, inhumanly, remorselessly brutal the Aliens
are – they are relentless and brilliantly single-minded, as
well as having a ruthless cunning. They look and sound incredibly unsettling,
and their darker, more animalistic design works wonders. It’s actually amazing,
considering how this film is over 30 years old, that the Alien effects look
better here than in Ridley Scott’s Alien:Covenant. Technically this film hasn’t aged a day – even the model work
makes the film look real and lived in, rather than electronic and shiny.
James Horner’s score is sombre, unsettling and foreboding.
It makes brilliant use of near ambient sound, before building into crashing,
threatening crescendos in sequence with the action. Mix that in with the film’s
brilliant sound design, and you’ve got a marvellous soundscape. The Aliens
sound unnatural in their hissing fury. The military equipment is just the right
side of futuristic and modern. The lighting is a dark mixture of shadows and
reds. Everywhere seems unsettled. The editing is hugely influential – fluid,
calm, brilliantly communicating the story and the geography of the action,
everything.
Cameron’s greatest triumph, though, is to ground the story
so well in a sense of family. The marines, for all their arguments and feuds,
are a functional family unit – part of the reason William Hope’s useless Gorman
struggles is because he doesn’t have the confidence to impose himself on such a
tight group. But the real family theme is the mother-daughter relationship
between Ripley and Newt. This is a bond that grows throughout the film, and
feels really genuine and warm. It’s also a relationship that gives an emotional
basis for all the actions we see. Cameron recognised that we can all relate to
a basic family and that protecting this against the Aliens is what defines us
in relation to them.
Of course, it also allows some clever thematic contrasts
later when we are introduced to the Queen Alien. While it would be easy to
blame this film for the tired cliché of the “Alien Queen” which we’ve seen time
and time again, it’s used really well here. The Aliens may be conscienceless
killers, but they’re still someone’s children: and we get a really neat
contrast between Ripley and the Alien Queen’s determination to protect their
children (as well as the best use of the word “Bitch” until Molly Weasley in Harry Potter).
The film’s secret weapon however is Sigourney Weaver’s
outstanding performance in the lead. Not many actors get Oscar nominations for
sci-fi or action films: Sigourney Weaver is one. And she deserved it because
this is an iconic performance. Ripley isn’t an action hero – she’s strong and
resourceful and she survives because of that. She’s not skilled at expressing
herself or communicating – largely because it’s clear she’s suffering from
PTSD. She completely fails to win over the corporate board with her story, and
it’s clear the marines don’t hold her initial briefing in high regard. But even
before they arrive on the planet, she’s beginning to win their respect. By the
time of the initial encounter, her principled, strong-willed, sensible
resourcefulness effectively makes her the expedition’s leader.
Alongside this, Weaver does a fantastic job with Ripley’s
growing maternal feelings towards Newt – the bond between these two is
immediately clear, and her maternal protection of Newt becomes one of her core
motivations. With Weaver, Hicks and Newt we end up with a strange family at the
centre – a curious closeness that makes the film feel unique. It adds a strong
emotional core to the film, and gives Weaver a depth to play with that
enlightens her relationships throughout the film – she’s clearly got a strong
protective feeling, and her desire to protect the marines is as much a part of
this as her feelings for Newt. It’s a
terrific performance, full of feeling and strength. She fully deserved the
Oscar nomination – arguably she could have won.

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