CLASSIC MOVIE CORNER: 'Aliens' (1986)

Carrie Henn in 'Aliens'“Aliens” (1986)

MPAA Rating: R
Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton

The Gist: This ain’t a war. It’s a picnic. And humans are the main course.

The Story: Fifty-seven years after the events in “Alien,” Ellen Ripley (Weaver) is found adrift in space. Ripley put herself into hibernation after defeating a predatory alien that killed the other crew members of the Nostromo, a deep-space commercial vessel. She’s horrified to learn the planet where the alien was discovered is now home to unwitting families of colonists. When radio communication with the colony falls silent, Ripley is recruited to accompany a squad of leathernecks on a rescue mission. They arrive on the barren planet to find the colonists have been slaughtered — except for one shell-shocked girl named Newt (Henn). Ripley is determined to save Newt and exterminate the alien threat.

The Review: As sequels go, “Aliens” is just about perfect. After 21 years, it’s still an action movie benchmark. James Cameron wrote and directed the film, knowing that it would be impossible to top “Alien” by just giving audiences more of the same. Cameron kept key elements of the original classic, but added his own ideas and took the story in a completely different direction. Where “Alien” is like a gothic ghost story set in space, “Aliens” is a pulse-pounding war movie. The thrills partly come from seeing the asymmetric battle between human high-tech and alien fangs, spikes and claws. But “Aliens” is more than just another explosion fest. Ripley’s unstoppable maternal instinct, awakened by Newt’s plight, is the humans’ ultimate secret weapon.

The Classic Quote: Newt: “My mommy always said there were no monsters, no real ones, but there are.”

(Jorge Sosa is a staff writer for the Hutchinson Leader. He can be reached at sosa@hutchinsonleader.com)