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Aliens

Name: Aliens
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Released: July 18, 1986
Duration: 137 min
Rating: 84
Cast: Michael Biehn, Sigourney Weaver

1986

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Universal acclaim based on 812 Ratings

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9.0

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9.0	User Score Universal acclaim based on 812 Ratings

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Aliens

Movie Details & Credits

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: July 18, 1986 | R

Starring: Michael Biehn, Sigourney Weaver

Summary: In this action-packed sequel to Alien, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, the only survivor from mankind's first encounter with the monstrous Alien. Her account of the Alien and the fate of her crew are received with skepticism - until the mysterious disappearance of colonists on LV-426 leads her to join a team of high-tech colonialIn this action-packed sequel to Alien, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, the only survivor from mankind's first encounter with the monstrous Alien. Her account of the Alien and the fate of her crew are received with skepticism - until the mysterious disappearance of colonists on LV-426 leads her to join a team of high-tech colonial marines sent in to investigate. [20th Century Fox]… Expand

Director: James Cameron

Genre(s): Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 137 min

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Awards & Rankings

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

Rita Kempley

Cameron and company have made a sequel that is gripping and vital. The 2 1/2 hours fly by with this brave company, our imaginations sucked into the screen as if by a black hole. [18 July 1986, p.N31]

100

Staff (Not Credited)

A nonstop, high-tech, souped-up war movie, with gung ho marines blasting special-effects creatures, and a genuinely convincing, exciting action heroine. Read full review

100

Rick Kogan

Though Aliens is unable to eschew some obvious sci-fi conventions and those of other genres as well, it brings a fresh and lively spirit to this tired cinematic clime. Scene to scene, encounter to encounter, its tension builds unrelentingly. So, fasten your seat belts. It`s a blast. Read full review

Jay Scott

Essentially, it re-constitutes the war movie, and in so doing marries a feminist Rambo to Star Wars. [19 July 1986, p.D9]

Sheila Benson

But of all the film's choices, the best was Weaver. She's its white-hot core, given fine, irascible dialogue to come blazing out of that patrician mouth, and the chance to look, for a moment, like a space-dusted Sleeping Beauty in her hyper-sleep casket. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

James Cameron's vault into the big time after scoring with the exploitation actioner The Terminator makes up for lack of surprise with sheer volume of thrills and chills - emphasis is decidedly on the plural aspect of the title. Read full review

Pauline Kael

An inflated sci-fi action-horror film...[Cameron] does it in an energetic, systematic, relentless way, with an action dicretor's gusto, and a shortage of imagination. The imagery has a fair amount of graphic power, but there's too much claustrophobic blue-green darkness.

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User Reviews

ERG1008

Aug 23, 2010

Ripley wakes up 57 years after the original film, bad nightmares, colonies now on LV-426, lose contact, marines go in, action-a-go-go!!
Sequel to Ridley Scott's masterpiece. It's not as creepy & maybe not as dark but the larger than life Marines, number of Aliens & fast dialogue make it big,Ripley wakes up 57 years after the original film, bad nightmares, colonies now on LV-426, lose contact, marines go in, action-a-go-go!!
Sequel to Ridley Scott's masterpiece. It's not as creepy & maybe not as dark but the larger than life Marines, number of Aliens & fast dialogue make it big, loud & a lot of fun to watch.
After watching it again recently it's interesting to see how many video games have used this film as an influence.… Expand

13 of 13 users found this helpful130

bennewman

May 28, 2018

Aliens is one of the greatest sequels and movies of all time. It takes the original then changes the genre and director and creates a masterpiece.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Atala

Oct 27, 2012

Estupefacta me hallo al darme cuenta de que, con el cuento de ir a ver Prometheus, de Ridley Scott, hay más personas de las que pensaba que aún no han visto una de las obras maestras, no solo de Ridley Scott, sino del cine y de la ciencia ficción, el primer Alien.
PorEstupefacta me hallo al darme cuenta de que, con el cuento de ir a ver Prometheus, de Ridley Scott, hay más personas de las que pensaba que aún no han visto una de las obras maestras, no solo de Ridley Scott, sino del cine y de la ciencia ficción, el primer Alien.
Por eso hoy hago un llamamiento a todos aquellos afortunados (y digo … Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

CTHReviews

Mar 15, 2018

Aliens kicks so much ass. The effects are incredible, the characters are very likable, and the Oscar-nominated performance given by Sigourney Weaver is one that set the standard for ass-kicking women in movies.

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

DenisManu

Sep 5, 2014

James Cameron takes Ridley Scott's place in the director seat for the Alien sequel and it shows.He brings a more terrifying and gritty film with a true battle to the last survivor between aliens and humans

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MovieManiac83

Apr 23, 2015

Perhaps the best single word to describe James Cameron's Aliens is relentless. Tautly paced and expertly directed, this roller coaster ride of a motion picture offers a little bit of everything, all wrapped up in a tidy science fiction/action package. From the point when the openingPerhaps the best single word to describe James Cameron's Aliens is relentless. Tautly paced and expertly directed, this roller coaster ride of a motion picture offers a little bit of everything, all wrapped up in a tidy science fiction/action package. From the point when the opening half-hour of exposition ends and the real movie begins, Cameron barely gives viewers a chance to catch their breaths or ease their grips on their armrests as he plunges his characters from one dire situation to the next. This is one of those rare motion pictures that involves the audience so completely in the story that we're as worn out at the end as our on-screen counterparts.

Aliens takes place a half-century after the events in Alien. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, reprising her role as the lone survivor from the first outing) has been in cryogenic sleep in outer space, accompanied only by her loyal cat, Jones, until a salvage ship discovers her and brings her back to Earth. There, she finds herself facing serious charges of official misconduct (she was responsible, after all, for the destruction of a space ship) and her claims about the alien are greeted with skepticism. She is stripped of her pilot's license and left to cope on her own with life in the future - a future without her daughter, who recently died of old age. Then, all contact is suddenly lost with the terraforming colony on LV-426 - the planet on which Ripley's crew discovered the alien. A corporation executive, Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), approaches Ripley with a proposition: accompany a military team to LV-426 as an advisor and have her pilot's license restored. She concurs, but with a proviso: they are going there to destroy the aliens, not to harvest them or bring them back. Burke agrees.

If Aliens was no more than a series of suspenseful, effectively executed action sequences, it would still be a superior motion picture - Cameron's grasp of what gives an audience a jolt of adrenaline is that masterful. However, the element that elevates Aliens into the sparsely populated stratosphere of great science fiction movies is character identification. We care about what happens to the men and women populating this film. Even the supporting characters, such as Hudson and Vasquez, have personalities - they're not cookie-cutter fodder for the aliens to pick off one-by-one. I'm not talking about complex characterizations here, but the likability factor (or, in one case, the detestability factor) is way up. It doesn't take long for us to land on Ripley's side and to start cheering her on.

Ridley Scott developed Alien as a horror film - a "haunted house in space." Cameron's approach is different. Aliens is a fairly straightforward action/adventure picture. The horror elements are still there (most notably in an early dream sequence and during the scene when the marines encounter the cocooned colonists), but their impact is diminished. Nevertheless, even though he changes the tone, Cameron remains faithful to the original (something that cannot be said about the later two installments of the Alien quartet). From plot points to visual cues, it is apparent that Cameron made a careful study of the first film before embarking upon the sequel. The aliens, based on the design by H.R. Giger, possess virtually the same grotesque look (shiny black skin, prehensile tail, row upon row of sharp teeth). The space ships, rendered using "old fashioned" special effects (i.e., model work, not computer generated), have the same workmanlike appearance - starfaring behemoths built to be functional, not aesthetically pleasing. In fact, it should be noted that, although the fx work in Aliens may not be state-of-the-art by today's standards, it still holds up reasonably well.

For James Cameron, who would go on to direct two of the 1990s most memorable motion pictures (the action-packed Terminator 2 and the all-time box office champion, Titanic), The Terminator may have been the movie to put him on the map, but Aliens announced him as a force to be reckoned with. For fans of the Alien series, Aliens represented an unqualified triumph, exceeding the expectations of the most optimistic faithful. (Unfortunately, the lamentable Alien 3 stalled the series' momentum, effectively trashing the emotional core of its predecessor while sending the franchise into a creative free-fall.) When it comes to the logical marriage of action, adventure, and science fiction, few films are as effective or accomplished as Aliens, and there's nothing on the market (either in theaters or on video store shelves) that will leave you as thoroughly exhausted.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

lilkillpappy

Aug 3, 2012

James Cameron wrote a **** script, and it shows as this film gets cheesier and cheesier as the years go by and Alien gets better and better as the years go by. Some of the acting was absolutely horrible, and the story was uninteresting, and lacked emotion. I wont deny that this was a funJames Cameron wrote a **** script, and it shows as this film gets cheesier and cheesier as the years go by and Alien gets better and better as the years go by. Some of the acting was absolutely horrible, and the story was uninteresting, and lacked emotion. I wont deny that this was a fun action ride, but it doesn't even come close to Ridley Scott's film, and is not part of the franchise in my opinion. I own the Quadrilogy, and have watched these films probably like 50 times in my life time, and its funny how my first impressions of them have changed so much, and how the really good stuff just got better, but the hidden crap under James Cameron's film just started leaking out over time. Would have given it a higher score as an entertaining action film, but since its the sequel to a fantastic Art film, and it lacks any art on any level it completely fails.… Expand

8 of 56 users found this helpful848

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