Aliens (1986)

When Ridley Scott's Alien arrived in 1979, it established a template for science-fiction horror that felt genuinely difficult to follow. So when 20th Century Fox and Brandywine Productions announced a sequel seven years later, the question hanging over the whole project was an obvious one: why bother? The answer, it turned out, was James Cameron. Rather than attempt to replicate the claustrophobic, slow-burn dread of the original, Cameron pitched something with a fundamentally different centre of gravity, swapping the haunted-house-in-space atmosphere for something louder, faster, and considerably more military in its outlook. The film picks up with Ellen Ripley, sole survivor of the doomed Nostromo, waking from decades of hypersleep to find her account of events on LV-426 met with institutional scepticism. When contact is eventually lost with the colony now established on that same moon, she agrees to return alongside a unit of Colonial Marines to find out what has gone wrong. The tagline, "This time it's war", does a reasonable job of managing expectations.

Cameron came to the project off the back of The Terminator (1984), a low-budget science-fiction thriller that had announced him as someone with a sharp instinct for action and a willingness to push his productions hard. That instinct is all over Aliens. Filmed largely at Pinewood Studios in England, the production was famously gruelling, and the tension between Cameron and the British crew became something of an industry story in its own right. None of that friction is visible on screen, where the world-building feels consistent and the action sequences are staged with real confidence. The film runs to 137 minutes (longer still in its extended cut), and sustaining that kind of momentum is no small technical achievement. SLM Production Group joined Brandywine and Fox in backing the project, and the resources are clearly on the screen.

The cast does a great deal of the work in making those nearly two and a half hours feel earned. Sigourney Weaver returned to the role of Ripley, and her performance here earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, a rare distinction for a science-fiction action film at the time. She anchors everything. Around her, Michael Biehn plays the dependable Corporal Hicks, Paul Reiser brings a polished but unremarkable corporate menace to the company representative Burke, and Lance Henriksen is quietly memorable as the synthetic Bishop. Perhaps most crucially, young Carrie Henn plays Newt, the child Ripley finds on LV-426, and it is that relationship which gives the film much of its emotional weight. The ensemble, boisterous marines included, is well cast across the board. For Cameron's later work, I've also looked at Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Titanic (1997), and Avatar (2009), each of which shows a director who rarely does anything on a small scale.

Now this is how you do a sequel. James Cameron took everything that made Alien great, atmosphere, tension, fear, and turned it up to 11 with an action-packed, emotional rollercoaster. The military vibe, the pacing, the stakes, it’s a perfect mix of horror and sci-fi action that few films can match. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley is even more compelling here, and the chemistry between her and the crew makes the stakes even more personal. It’s hard to top the original’s haunting dread, but Aliens makes up for it by being an entirely different beast, one that’s equally as influential, if not more so. Iconic moments, great performances, and a sense of terror that doesn’t let up until the credits roll. It’s not just a great sequel; it’s a classic in its own right.

And that last point is the one I keep coming back to. There is a version of this film that could have felt cynical, a studio product cashing in on a name, all noise and no substance. What Cameron delivered instead is something that has genuinely aged well, a film with its own identity rather than just its predecessor's shadow. The action sequences hold up, the performances hold up, and the emotional core of it, that bond between Ripley and Newt, gives the whole thing a reason to exist beyond the spectacle. If you want to see where Weaver's Ripley goes from here, I've also covered Alien³ (1992), though that's a conversation with a rather different ending. For now, though, Aliens sits in that rare category: a sequel that earns its place. Sometimes war really is the answer.

Rating: ★★★★  | Year: 1986  | Watched: 2025-04-10

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Aliens (1986) on YouTube

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from James Cameron: Titanic (1997) · Avatar (2009) · Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) · The Terminator (1984)
More with Sigourney Weaver: Avatar (2009) · Alien (1979) · Alien Resurrection (1997) · Alien³ (1992)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
More thriller: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Angst (1983) · The Long Walk (2025) · Punishment Park (1971)