-Spoilers- Aliens is the rarest type of film: A sequel that surpasses the original. Set 57 years after the original, Ripley's escape pod has been found, and she is returned to earth. Once she gets there, however, her story is discounted and The Company fire her for detonating her old ship. A few weeks later Burke, an employee of The Company, asks her to go with a group of marines to LV-426 (the planet where she found the first alien), where contact has been lost with a colony of terraformers... Aliens is a fantastic movie. It is quite different from 1 & 3 in the series, in that there is a huge nest of Aliens instead of one, and Ripley actually has some decent firepower. Yet it doesn't descend into the usual action cliches of firefight after firefight: the few marines left after the initial alien attack are stranded, and try to barricade themselves in, leading to some tense and genuinely frightening moments as the aliens grow ever closer. The characters are also well-developed, which is a change, you really feel something as they die, which adds to the overall effect. The acting is extremely high quality; some characters aren't hugely likeable, but they're still enjoyable to watch. It helps to have seen Alien- it explains all the references to the previous battle with the aliens, and Ripley's antipathy towards Bishop, a synthetic. This is undoubtedly the best film in the series: while it doesn't having the shocking ending of 3, the almost-happy ending rings true, which makes the start of 3 even more tragic (but that's another spoiler). Overall this film is interesting, exciting and genuinely scary: 10/10.
