My apprehension to watching this could not be overstated but Alex assured me that it was much better than the first one.
This time directed by James Cameron, we once again find Ellen Ripley and best actor winner Jones the cat returning for Aliens, the second installment of the Alien quadrillogy.
Ripley got into cryosleep saying that she should make it to Earth in a few weeks at the end of Alien. At the beginning of Aliens, she is awoken from cryosleep to find out that she’s been in stasis for 57 years. Guess she slightly miscalculated.
Then the company she works for puts her before a panel of judges and suspends her flight license because they don’t believe her story. She’s also demoted and learns that a colony has been established on the same planet that her crew encountered the aliens on.
So starts the movie. It sure is a crappy way to start a movie. There’s a ton of plot holes in this movie early on and eventually they finally eliminate them, but it takes FOREVER!!!
The movie is incredibly slow to start and moves at a snail’s pace. The characters are established which is one of the few benefits to wasting all the time they do in this movie.
I get to learn who Ripley is in this movie instead of the movie just assuming that I know who Ripley is like they did in Alien. She has some character development. The rest of the supporting cast isn’t relevant and you can tell because you don’t get under the skin of any of these characters.
The movie is way too long. At two and a half hours, the action and story line simply don’t require so much time. The first hour is all exposition and plot holes. It’s incredibly boring and not essential to the story.
After the slugfest of boredom that was the whole first half of this movie. it finally gets suspenseful and exciting. It has a lot going for it. However, there’s a huge plot hole at the end that ruins the fun.
Once again, if you’re new to my blog, I’ve always ranked movies on a scale of 0-100 (I don’t know why, I just always have). Here’s the grading scale.
90-100 It’s a great movie and definitely one worth buying. (Iron Man 3, World War Z, 42, Just Go With It)
80-89 It was a pretty good movie and definitely one worth seeing, but it doesn’t quite scratch my top ten percentile. (Man of Steel, Monster-In-Law, White House Down, Jobs, The Truman Show)
70-79 It’s okay but I’ve seen better. It has its moments, but it has its flaws, too. (Shaun of the Dead, Sharknado, The Usual Suspects, 21 Jump Street, Escape Plan)
60-69 It’s got plenty wrong with it but I still got enjoyment out of this one. (Pacific Rim, The Long Kiss Goodnight)
50-59 This movie isn’t intolerable but it’s not blowing my mind either. I’m trying really hard to get some sort of enjoyment out of this. (After Earth, Road to Perdition, Total Recall, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Along Came Polly)
40-49 This movie is just mediocre. It’s not doing anything other than the bare minimal, so morbidly boring that sometimes I’m actually angry I watched this. (Patriot Games, The Great Gatsby, Pitch Black, Alien)
30-39 Definitely worse than mediocre, the 30’s ironically define the 1930’s, full of depression, lack of accomplishments, poverty and just so dumb. (The Contract, Pride and Prejudice)
20-29 What did I just watch? Cliches, stupidity, nothingness, did I mention stupidity? Just…wow. (The Sum of All Fears)
0-19 Watching this movie resulted in one or more of the following: seizure, loss of brain cells, falling asleep/unconsciousness, feel you wasted your time/day, accomplished nothing for you, left the movie knowing less about it then you did going into it, constantly asking yourself why you came to see this movie, or near-death experience. In short, staring at a wall was just as entertaining as watching this movie. This movie deserved a sticker or a label that said, “WARNING: EXTREME AMOUNT OF SUCKAGE.” (Midnight Cowboy, Dark Fury)
My score for Aliens: 54.
The third act of this movie is pretty good but there’s a plot hole at the end and the movie as a whole is simply too long and leaves the audience bored. Ripley’s character development isn’t too bad but the supporting cast doesn’t have much. The action’s good but there’s not enough of it.
*SPOILER ALERT* IF YOU DON’T WANT THE MOVIE SPOILED, STOP READING!!!
*SPOILER’S EDITION*
First off, Jones the cat is in the movie for like ten minutes. I would have loved to have had him throughout the whole movie because having him the whole movie in Alien was priceless. Second, once Ripley is told that a mission to investigate the loss of communication on the alien planet is commencing, she says there’s no way she’s going and she will never change her mind. A few hours later she changes her mind; the main character says they’re never going to do something and then they change their mind in a couple of hours cliche. Also, why would you ever go there? I’m sorry, but if they’ve lost communication with the planet then they’re probably all dead and it’s not worth going there to investigate.
Next, one of the families on the planet goes on a perimeter round and discovers the alien ship. The ship is within sight of the main base and is less than two miles away. Are you seriously saying that in all the years that this base has been operating they’ve never looked even two miles outside their base before? Seriously?
When the characters finally get on this planet, which is nearly a half hour in, the armed crew investigates the base for ten minutes and finds nothing. They only go through one floor of the base and the commander outside determines the base is clear. What?! The place has multiple stories and they check one level and they deem it safe? Who does that?! What military procedures are they following?!
They go in and discover where all the human locators are, meaning that is where all of the people must be. They get in there and Ripley reminds the commander that they are under a nuclear reactor, meaning that they can’t be shooting in there or the place will explode. The commander instructs the sergeant to take all of their magazines. What?! You’re sending them in there with low-grade weapons?! Why do you need to take their magazines? They’re highly trained soldiers! How did this guy ever get promoted?! If you have to take their magazines, retreat back, leave your high-grade guns and go in then or better yet, just send two guys with the high-grade weapons in and if they explode then you don’t lose anybody. Regardless of what he chooses, anything would have been better than the decision he made.
Finally at the end of the movie, Ripley goes, by herself, to rescue the little girl. She has close to no military experience, but she manages to kill a crapload of aliens, which while incredibly unrealistic, is still pretty fun to watch. Then she faces the mother alien in a baggage robot, which looks similar to the robots in Avatar.
She faces the mother alien and they both fall down an air shaft. Ripley gets out of the baggage robot and starts to climb the ladder to get out. The mother alien grabs Ripley’s leg right before the air hatch collapses, meaning everything is being sucked into outer space. Ripley interlocks her arms around the ladder rung and is able to hold on until the mother alien loses her grasp. Wait, what?! That mother alien was at least a ton. Ripley’s leg would have ripped off or Ripley wouldn’t have been able to hold the weight and they both would have been sucked into space. The way they ended it is just not plausible.
wordsofwistim 