It's a rare thing when a sequel outshines it's predecessor in almost every concievable way, Aliens achieves just that, with a rock-em, sock-em frag fest that makes the first films single Xenomorph adversary seem like a rumble with a group of angry Cub Scouts.
The film opens with a deep space salvage crew rescuing Ripley from a half-century sleep and returns her to Earth where she is interogated by the suits who funded the ill-fated mission of the Nostromo. When Ripley's insists that the planet LV-426 is a virtual playground for Xeno's like that which devoured her crew, her claims are dismissed and she is informed that there have been human terra-formers on the planet for a decade and they have not reported a single incident. This doesn't sit well with Ripley, but she doth protest to much for the ears of Company types and is relegated to the job of dockworker, pending review of her ability to return to space.
A few months later, Ripley is visited by the shifty Carter Burke (Reiser) and marine Lt. Gorman. Burke tells Ripley that contact with LV-426 has been lost, and that they are launching a military investigation and that they would like to bring her along as a "technical advisor" in the event that her story of the fate of the Nostromo is true. She agrees after some introspection, and heads off to LV-426 to discover that her greates fears have come true.
Cameron (Terminator, T-2) flexes his epic storytelling muscles in perhaps his most accomplished film to date. While Ridley Scott's original relied on confined spaces, claustrophobic camera work and nerve wracking suspense, Cameron's vision of the Alien world is a much more open, elaborate and large scale war movie approach. The combination of an army of aliens and the bad ass Colonial Marines makes this more of action/sci-fi than horror, but there are quite a few pant spoiling moments to get you jumping from your seat.
The DVD takes full advantage of the medium, restoring Cameron's original cut of the film by adding 20 minutes of excised footage that really should have been there all along. It's cuts like these that make me wonder what goes through a studio's mind when they demand such revisions. The picture and sound quality are as good as the laserdisc and handles the dark atmospheres wonderfully.
Additional extras are the course de rigeur "behind the scenes" shorts, cast and crew bio and some other tidbits, but lacks the Cameron commentary, which would have been a welcome addition. However there is a Cameron interview and some great documentary material here making this the definitive edition of Aliens and a must buy.
