I was sort of looking forward to this one, Boyfriend gave me a few hours to recover from Alien before we started on this one, and I was worried about what might have happened to Sigourney drifting alone in space with no night cream. When we woke up on Sunday morning I suggested we stick this on while having our scrambled eggs and I don’t think I have ever seen him so happy. Perhaps for the third installment I shall wear heels, lacy underwear and nothing else? Mmm shoes….
Anyway…
Aliens is set 57 years later and features Paul Reiser as a bit of a twat. Where the first film (I’m getting sick of pushing the italics key) is considered to be a haunted house, the film in the plural is a rollercoaster. It’s a true monster movie, like an episode of the x-files when they got all high-budget and lost track of their own conspiracies.
The film opens with Sigourney luckily being picked up by a scavenger but soon finds herself aboard a ‘company’ ship, coincidentally it’s the same shadowy ‘company’ that sent her out to unmapped planet from the initial film with the message ‘crew expendable’, however this time they blame her entirely for the destruction of her ship and refuse to believe the alien of the title exists. This is understandably a bit traumatic for poor Sigourney, and luckily her face can still express this (57 years later, surely there was SOME botox?) she has nightmares and wakes up in cold sweats, but luckily her cat is still about to comfort her. Inevitably the slimy Paul Reiser talks her into returning to planet that caused the end of her friends as they have inexplicably lost contact with the settlers who are now on the planet. Now this is a small planet and to me it seems a little coincidental that as soon as Sig’ wakes they want to head out to explore the ship where all the little aliens are sleeping? It later turns out Mr Reiser is responsible for this (how didn’t I see that one coming?)
On the lil’ planet Sig’, Reiser and their marine buddies (who include Bill from Twister and Kyle Reese from Terminator) try to stay as far from the impregnated colonists as they can, but luckily they’re already dead, excluding one incredibly intense little girl. But what else could be scarier than surviving alone in an airvent after you’ve seen literally everyone you know destroyed. It’s enough to make the most Seth Rogan among us into a Kenneth Branagh. Despite the fact that Sig has been brought along as an advisor everyone steadfastly ignores all of the advice she proffers and thus they end up cornered by the aliens.
Again the best part of this film is the bits you don’t see (and I mean this in the best way possible) when the remote sentries are firing into dark corridors and all we (and Sig and her mates) see is the countdown until they run out of bullets. Super creepy. Thankfully the smarmy Reiser gets his just desserts when he locks Sig and child outside with multiple aliens, but it turns out there’s one in the room with him. Again the camera cuts away after the look of horror on his face. Great.
The film ends in a similar way in that Sig nearly escapes but then has to head back for something she “forgot”, this time it’s the little child that she discovered at the beginning of the film. Here the film lulls you into a false sense of security, haven’t I seen this before? At least this time I can explain where the steam comes from…then suddenly, bam, alien queen in weird and slightly sticky lair. Sig races out and she is picked up by the scary android that bleeds milk and again they head off into space in hyper sleep. It finally seems that Miss Weaver has found her family the strangely sexy Kyle Reese and the full-on little girl who has barely spoken a word since the film began. aaaahhh
There’s definitely more blood and guts in this film, which I have to say is not what draws me in, and its gotta be the original film for me every time. I watch this as an entirely different genre of film and it’s hard really to see it as a sequel because it seems to do it’s best to distance itself from the first while moving on with the alien mythology, not only are there aliens and face-huggers now but also a queen alien and her weird, gooey nest which seems to be their natural habitat. They skulk about, they communicate. They LEARN. We know they’re clever because they build their nest under a cooling tower and they cut the power in order to better access the humans.
I know I gotta stick with these if I want Boyfriend to take me to Sex and The City 3.
