Aliens

1 9 8 6 (USA)

Director James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's outer space nightmare sees Sigourney Weaver return as Ripley. She is found adrift in space, having woken up from suspended animation 57 years after the events of the first film. Bizarrely, after 57 years asleep, she still needs a cigarette when she is revived!.

She is horrified to hear that the aliens planet, LV-426, has now been colonised. Unfortunately the colonists have all disappeared - the thick plottens! And so Ripley is sent back, sensibly this time taking along a team of Marines with one object to their mission: Locate and destroy acid-spewing, flesh-eating mutations before they multiply. 

Equipped with high-tech artillery, tanks, lasers, and the latest in intergalactic combat weapons, Weaver and the space marines take a full forty-five minutes to reach the deserted colony on LV-426 - Well, deserted except for hundreds of aliens!  Naturally it's only a matter of time before the aliens are attacking them, and once again it's up to Ripley to help the team get out of there alive. 

The only surviving colonist, a little girl who has been living in the underground pipes, leads the team to horrors the mind cannot fathom, and the rest of the film wallows in stomach churning special effects and piles on the gore with complete disregard for the audience's digestive system.

Will the spaceship be able to leave before the power blows everyone to pieces? Will Ripley rescue the child from the queen of the monsters (a cross between Grace Jones and a  500 ton praying mantis)?  And Just when you think it's all over, the action begins again! Everyone bleeds, vomits, spews blood, and agonizes unspeakably until the audience becomes desensitised to the violence and carnage. The visual effects are fantastic, and James Cameron directs with a penchant for strobe lights and prolonged stalking.

Do not watch this movie after a meal. Or before one, either.

TRIVIA NOTES
Bishop's blood at the end was a mixture of milk and yoghurt. Ripley's daughter, seen only in a photograph, is actually Sigourney Weaver's Mother.