Aliens (1986)

The original Alien movie is a masterpiece, which I’ve awarded a 10. I liked it so much because of the tense situation the crew of the Nostromo ends up in. The spaceship was made up of narrow corridors and an unknown enemy that was slowly taking out all crew members. So I was really looking forward to seeing Aliens, as I wanted to see more of those tense situations.

Aliens continues where Alien stops. Ripley’s ship is discovered and she wakes up from a very long sleep. It takes a while for her to get back into the swing of things as she still has horrible nightmares. She warns the rest of the company of the danger she has experienced, but despite her warnings a new mission to the planet is planned. Because Ripley has a lot of experience with the Alien she can join the space marines that are sent in first. Once they land Ripley has to face one of her worst fears again.

Aliens takes the formula set up by part 1 and just makes everything bigger. The weapons are bigger, all crew members are well-trained soldier and instead of one Alien there are more. When you compare this movie to the original you can say that Aliens is more of an action movie. It just lacks that dangerous feeling that was present in Alien. So this second part is a completely different movie compared to is predecessor. As it is an action movie it also doesn’t hold up as well as the first part (which I think is timeless). Some things just feel more dated.

Despite this criticism I still think that Aliens is a solid movie with a lot of tense moments, but not in the way Alien managed to show them. Therefore Alien is the better movie. If you are looking for action, you should watch the second part. If you like the feeling of being locked in a cage with a monster, then Alien is the movie you should see. en.

Score: 8