Aliens -
so, this series has been super jumbled for me. i think i actually half-assedly watched the third one first, just caught it on tv. and a few years later i watched the original, from 1979, and was floored by how amazing it was. this one kind of slipped through the cracks, maybe because the two are only distinguishable by one S in the title, and when i realized James Cameron was at the helm i even got excited, seeing as Terminator 2 is one of my all time favs, always and forever.
well, to start off, i guess it's not bad. it's definitely a Cameron movie. it's got a lot of punchy action sequences, an emotional core, campy mid-80's badass talk, what more can you ask? well, not much i guess, just not in an Alien movie. i know it's highly revered, but i was actually really disappointed in how much the blockbuster action approach killed most of what was great about the first movie.
i mean, the first movie was based on slow paced horror, and painstakingly established the Alien character as this indestructible creature from the depths of hell, and along comes Big Balls Cameron and turns them into hordes of expendable collateral damage. the entire first film told the story about how impossible it was to deal with one of them, and made it visceral and terrifying, and this movie just made light of all that. especially with the 80's A-Team with the awful Bill Paxton, who essentially plays the character of Michaelangelo from TMNT here.
sure, it was definitely much more impressive when it came out in '86, and the campy tough talk and very unsubtle establishing of characters is a good showcase of cinema traits that have evolved over the years, but more than anything else i just didn't agree with the stylistic choices made here. it was still entertaining and kinda fun though.
i was also surprised to see how much james cameron ripped off elements from Terminator films and shoved them here! i may be too big a Terminator nerd but i literally know every single shot from these movies and he legit ripped some of them off here (the electrical disturbances in the ship, the way the child goes down that big metal wheel in the final act, etc). sigh
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