Aliens (Special Edition)
by James Cameron
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DVD details
Actor: Carrie Henn, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser, Sigourney WeaverDirector: James Cameron
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, THX, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 154 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-06-01
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of Aliens (Special Edition)
DVD Review: Follow-up that doesn't disapoint...for the most part
Summary: 5 Stars
Aliens is the successful sequel to Ridley Scott's classic Alien, and sets the tone for a multitude of future science fiction films. Moving away from the horror genre of Alien, Aliens is a pretty straightforward action film, full of violence and colorful dialogue, which certainly won't disappoint most viewers. Being a follow-up to a film like Alien Director James Cameron made sure to make this his film and not reuse concepts from the ground breaking original. That being said, however, some of Cameron's changes do cause the aliens to lose their mysterious nature that we were presented with in the first film, but I'll be back with more on that in just a second.
The plot revolves around the first film's lead female character, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and how she goes back to the planet where she first encountered the alien that killed off her crew. Having been in cryo-sleep for decades a lot of things have changed, such as her daughter dying of old age. Ripley doesn't seem to have much to live for anymore so she goes along with the operation when contact with a local colony is lost. Escorted by the marines, she encounters the only survivor, a girl by the name of `Newt'. Having just lost her own daughter, Ripley quickly bonds to the child. Of course this wouldn't be Aliens if everything didn't go wrong, and soon all the characters are fighting for their lives (and quickly losing). Ripley must step up to the challenge and confront her fears once again.
Aliens is probably my favorite film in the series, due to high levels of action, colorful characters, and memorable scenes, but do I think it's better than Alien? No, I most certainly do not think that this film tops the work of Ridley Scott. I love James Cameron's work, and Aliens, but his film is not as well made as Scott's first film, even if I do enjoy Cameron's film more. A key issue I find with Aliens is the liberties Cameron took on the species, which in so doing, destroys their mystery.
In Alien we were presented with a terrifying creature that was quite frightening. This creature crawled, and moved across the Nostromo with great elegance, and was always able to catch its victims by surprise, often showing an advanced level of intelligence. Driven by its survival instincts this animal did whatever it took to survive, while also showing curiosity (examining the cat, but not harming it, and not attacking Ripley upfront in the escape pod). In Cameron's action-packed sequel most of these aspects of the species are lost. The first hive scene, seeing the aliens come out of the walls which they had blended into so very well, was in the nature of the first film, but after that they lose most of the nature of the sleek skinned alien of Scott's film, and came across as having the inteligence of your typical pack animal. They're noisy, they swarm, exhibit very little intelligence and just lose a lot of their "scare factor." In this film the aliens are like zombies; there's a lot of them, they swarm, get blown to bits in mass to the cheers of audience members (honestly, you know the zombie genre is popular because people love seeing mass quantities of things blown up in gruesome fashions). The Alien Queen is probably just as iconic as the original "drone" class of the species, but Cameron's "ant hive" structure just doesn't seem to fit in as well with what we saw exhibited in the first film of the franchise. It's just too simple, and well... down to earth. I don't think if there had been a hive full of Scott's aliens that they would've simply run headlong into gunfire, because in the first film the species was shown as being something that would do ANYTHING to survive and multiply.
Okay, critic time is over, and I must say that the hive structure does work out very nicely in this film, and the aliens look great, especially the queen. The action is intense, but never really frightened me for a second. The action is very well shot; Cameron having just shot The Terminator knew how to do entertaining action sequences.
This is my favorite film in the franchise, and it is that way for most viewers, but I can't bring myself to say it is on par with the greatness of Scott's Alien. Aliens comes pretty dang close to besting it, but in the end it comes down the atmosphere, and Scott's film had it more so than Cameron's. I will always love Aliens, and will never deny it as my favorite film in this series, but Alien was a film that ultimately had everything needed to become a classic.
I give Aliens a strong 5/5
DVD Review: Mostly Lives Up To The First Installment. Mostly.
Summary: 4 Stars
Cameron's bigger budget, higher octane follow up to the ground breaking 'Alien' has more of everything that the first film had, but that doesn't mean it is the superior film.
James serves up the action with a good helping of cheese, thanks in large part to Bill "We're all gonna die" Paxton and the rest of his cliched 'elite soldier' comrades. Throw in a side of Newt (They mostly come at night. Mostly.) and you get just a little more silly dialogue than you can ignore.
Where the film triumphs is in the relentless tension created by the character's ever more desperate circumstances and dwindling numbers. Cameron's hordes of aliens don't deliver the same scares as the lonely ET in 'Alien' but they are more menacing, not just by virtue of numbers but by improvements in special effects.
This is a modern classic, a standard setting film, and a must-have for serious sci-fi fans. This DVD includes two versions of the film, commentary and more extras than you could want. A collectors edition that deserves the title.
DVD Review: One Scary Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I have a few things in mind when I review a movie and unlike the professional critics it has nothing to do with artistic merit or who won the oscar. What makes this film great is...
1) It is one of the best if not THE best of the genre
2) It WILL make you tense and put you right in the action
3) It has strong replayability
Buying a DVD is a luxury for me so I make sure that it is a damn good film before I hit the 'buy' button. Aliens is a classic movie that will be with you for years and you will find yourself watching it over and over again. This is probably one of the top 10 DVDs I own.
DVD Review: The best of the Alien movies
Summary: 5 Stars
Aliens, the sequel to Alien, is the best of the Alien quadrilogy, and is one of the most influential science fiction movies ever made. You can find references to this movie in sources as diverse as the film "Starship Troopers," the PC game "Starcraft" and TV's "Battle Star Galactica." In a three way tie with "Bladerunner," and "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," for best science fiction film ever made, Aliens is a thrill ride with some of the most chilling visuals of any horror/science fiction film. Lt. Ripley is also one of the most memorable characters in any sci-fi movie or science fiction franchise. Aliens is so good, I can almost forgive Sigourney Weaver for her recent, ridiculously cheesy Direct TV commercial.DVD Review: An Engaging Thriller
Summary: 4 Stars
This isn't so much a strict sequel to Alien as it is a re-imagining of the Alien mythos. As one of the greatest horror films ever made, Aliens couldn't possibly have been an acceptable follow-up if Cameron had tried making it a horror film. Luckily, the very smart decision was made to turn Aliens into an action-thriller film, and it succeeds. Aliens, while an entirely different sort of film, is taut, engaging, and very well-made.
The characters and plot are nothing special here. In Alien, the real star of the show was the Nostromo. The dark, claustrophobic spaceship provided the perfect backdrop for Giger's shadowy creation to stalk around. In Aliens, the aliens themselves are the stars. Whereas we never get too clear a picture of the adult alien in the first film (even at the end, the creature is still guised in shadow), aliens are quite clearly visible in this film. The special effects are magnificent. The queen alien is perhaps one of the most majestic and terrifying creatures ever to appear in a film. And Ripley's final descent into the collapsing hive is a visceral and disturbing descent into Hell itself.
The action is intense, the various moments of anticipation are nerve-wracking, the special effects are eye-popping, and the story, if more conventional, is adequate for the purposes of the film. The acting is a bit weak in some areas, but not enough to be distracting. Overall, this is a solid and entertaining film, and one of the few instances where a sequel actually manages to be decent.
Description of Aliens (Special Edition)
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 colonial marines sent in to investigate.Personally supervised by director James Cameron, this special edition includes scenes eliminated prior to the film's 1986 release which broaden the narrative scope and enrich the emotional impact of the film.
Aliens is one of the few cases of a sequel that far surpassed the original. Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, who awakens on Earth only to discover that she has been hibernating in space so long that everyone she knows is dead. Then she is talked into traveling (along with a squad of Marines) to a planet under assault by the same aliens that nearly killed her. Once she gets there, she finds a lost little girl who triggers her maternal instincts--and she discovers that the company has once again double-crossed her, in hopes of capturing one of the aliens to study as a military weapon. Directed and written by James Cameron, this is one of the most intensely exciting (not to mention intensely frightening) action films ever, with a large ensemble cast that includes Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, and Michael Biehn. Weaver defined the action woman in this film and walked away with an Oscar nomination for her trouble. --Marshall Fine
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