ALIENS (Special Edition)
Way, way more than just an action flick
(note: I wrote a feminist criticism of this movie a couple of years ago for a course on film. Honest.)
When I first saw this, I wasn't impressed at all. The movie's core flaw - that it takes forever to get going - got the best of me that time, when I was fourteen and had the attention span of a gnat, and I ended up playing with this preying mantis the whole time. 'course, then I saw Alien and had to give it a second chance, and ended up of course loving it.
I only got to see part of the Special Edition on TV when it was broadcast in 1991 or so; even then, not all of the SE footage was there (notably, the beginning on Acheron, but there was still a lot of other stuff missing). Only now do I see the whole thing, complete (well, minus that Burke-cocoon scene which wasn't in any real cut of the film anyway, that I know of). IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!!!
Ripley's still alive, and she's looking pretty good for being in hypersleep for 57 years. She comes home to find her daughter dead of old age and a world she can't really adjust to, not to mention nonstop nightmares about her ordeal on the Nostromo. Conveniently for her peace of mind, a colony's been set up a few miles from that derelict spacecraft they got the alien from in the first place, and the Marines are going in to find out why contact has been lost with them. Ripley decides to go along as a consultant, and you'd better believe they don't just have a downed transmitter.
(BTW, on a totally irrelevant note; I read an article in the paper a few weeks ago which said "You know you're watching a chick movie if it features a scene with a woman weeping while looking into a mirror and brushing her hair." This movie features Ripley sobbing while looking into a mirror and running her hand through her hair. Close enough?)
Despite some irritating plot problems (uh, EVERYBODY goes down on the planet? Not one guy stays with the ship, in case pirates try to steal it, or something? And one guy's plan for smuggling back an alien specimen seems rather poorly thought out), this is James Cameron's best work as a writer, except for maybe The Abyss. He's taken a lot of flak (especially in recent years) over his scripts, mostly due to the alleged sexism and racism of True Lies (more or less true, not like I care) and the perceived shallowness of Titanic (not nearly as bad as I've frequently heard), and has been downright crucified (well, metaphorically) in some quarters for his writing. I have never seen such charges levied against this film; even supporting characters come across as convincing and sympathetic, even when on the surface they look like stereotypes. The man CAN write; he just doesn't always pull it off the way he does directorially.
Aside from Weaver, who got a much-deserved Oscar nomination for her fiery performance as Ripley (never once looking like she's enjoying the violence in the movie like some conventional action hero), it's Lance Henriksen who stands out the most as a much-abused android who exhibits a childlike curiosity about the aliens. (up until this film, Henriksen was a Cameron mainstay. I've heard that their falling out had something to do with a cattle prod) Paul Reiser sheds any doubt about his capabilities of playing a character other than himself, as a slippery-as-hell Company suit who tags along to look out for Company interests. Bill Paxton creates a classic character in Hudson, a reckless private who initially seems alternately recklessly brave and shamefully cowardly. (I used him for my high-school graduation yearbook quote, by the way) Al Matthews is great as Apone, the curmudgeoned sergeant of the marines, and Carrie Henn, who hasn't acted since, turns in a performance that we don't see much of in this kind - or any kind - of movie; that is, a kid who reacts to adult situations like, well, a kid. Despite the script's pointing out that she managed to do what none of the marines are likely to pull off (that is, survive), she did it by doing what kids would do (hiding) (and screaming so high pitched that only dogs can hear it). The only person in the cast who's anything less than topnotch is Michael Biehn, who deadpans his role as Hicks well into disinterest.
I've often heard this movie referred to as (with alternate praise and disdain) an action movie, not a horror movie. Every time I watch it, it amazes me that people these days refuse to acknowledge its strength as a horror flick. Sure, there's lots of guns going off, and James Horner's militaristic score accentuates the gung-ho ass-kicking marine-thing going on here, but this is a gripping, creepy, frighteningly intense movie in which action sequences are set up to scare the living crap out of you. When this movie came out in 1986, nobody called it an action movie. Reviews at the time mentioned how sometimes it's so scary, it's not even enjoyable. Yeah, sure, it's an action movie, but it's a horror movie too, and a damn good one.
Take the aliens' first attack on the not-quite-wary-enough marines. Half of it is shown from the increasingly ineffective marine's perspective, with the camera in the thick of things; the other half is shown through the video feed from awkward-looking, shoulder-mounted video cameras through which Ripley and a couple of others helplessly watch the action, while bio-readouts flatline to an agonizing whine and screens register the lashing out of alien claws just before cutting out into static. It manages to simultaneously capture the panicked terror of the dwindling marine supply, and the helpless despair of the observers. The next major aliens-vs.-marines battle is more traditionally action-oriented, but it's still effective as hell; especially in its excruciatingly suspenseful buildup.
The creature effects are terrific, even introducing a new kind of alien; the Queen, the big, nasty one that lays the eggs in the first place. One strange note about the alien design in this movie; the Queen aside, even the regular aliens look slightly different here than the original 1979 creature. Mostly, it's their heads - not perfectly smooth, they're "ribbed", with a spine-like extension down the crown of their heads. The strange thing is, in the Alien Legacy video, there was an alien head just like that in 1979, not covered over by the smooth membranous surface. Just what we're supposed to conclude from this, I have no idea. The smooth head returns for the next two sequels.
The sets are spectacular, sometimes looking like they're leading the cast right into a big, dripping womb. Effects are all excellent as well, earning a deserved Oscar, again. James Horner's score is effective (and was widely used in other films' trailer until 1995, when Hans Zimmer's "Roll Tide" from Crimson Tide became the one fashionable to use), although largely recycled from his previous work on Wolfen. And like I said, Cameron just pulls it all off, visually and in terms of intensity.
Possibly James Cameron's best film; this one's a winner on all fronts except for those nagging difficulties with the plot. The Special Edition footage is a mixed bag. Some of it serves to needlessly protract the already tortuously lengthy introduction (in this version, it's about seventy minutes until that first attack); and there's an awkward scene where Hicks and Ripley exchange first names in a soon-to-be-aborted attempt at romance. Most wisely cut from the theatrical release is a scene where Paxton performs a rather embarrassing rant about how much of a badass he is.
But there are some real gems in there too. It's great to see the derelict spacecraft revisited, and at least seen from different angles. Ripley is established as a mother who came home to find her child dead of old age; this can either flesh out her relationship with Newt (although Weaver always insisted that the two were more like sisters), or help explain part of why she goes out with the marines in the first place. Their relationship is a little more deeply explored in one scene. And there's a killer scene were the aliens lay siege to the holed-in crew while automated guns cut them down by the truckload, quickly running out of bullets. Let's face it, even the weaker stuff in the SE footage I'm taking immense joy in - I've been waiting to see some of this stuff since I first read about it in the novelization in junior high.
If you're not a serious fan, you won't really get much extra out of the Special Edition; and if you are, you don't need me to tell you to go see it. In either form, Aliens is an excellent movie on nearly every front; a worthy successor to the original, and smartly very different in form, establishing the beginning of a very enjoyable trend in this series, in that nobody can say that they're just making the same movie again and again.