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We all knew the aliens would return after Ridley Scott's brilliant original, but it is James Cameron's masterful pacing and awesome characters that make us anticipate when and how they will appear in Aliens. It is a daring sequel that builds slowly, allowing time to develop the masculine (and feminine) qualities of the humans involved, prior to meeting the legions of aliens that have a warranted reputation for scaring the bejesus out of us all.

Opening fifty-seven years after Alien, Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is awakened from hyper sleep when her ship is picked up by the human colony on Hadley's Hope. Soon she hears contact has been lost with the people on LV-426 (the occupied Alien planet from the first movie), and is persuaded to tag along with a bunch of colonial marines to investigate. Needless to say, the team of badasses have no idea what they are getting themselves into, and this gives cue for the Xenomorph species to wreck havoc in its hundreds.

It takes a good hour till we first see the marines encounter their worst nightmare, but as we learn about characters and their traits, it makes the battle all the more exciting. Though once marketed as an action film, Aliens is rich with human emotion; most notably, the developing bond between Ripley and orphan-child "Newt" (Carrie Henn), and the conflicting tensions between the colonial marines and corporate representative Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) that represent the best and worst sides of humanity.

Sigourney Weaver deserves a lot of the credit for her performance here. She makes a great action hero, but what's most respectable is she doesn't need to flaunt her physical assets for attention (like Lara Croft or Rambo) to prove that she's a tough broad with buckets of sex appeal. Despite the title "Aliens", Weaver is the main focus of attention here, driving the film forward (giving no-hopers like me some much needed faith in humanity).

The marines, too, deserve a special mention. Corporal Hicks (the under-used Michael Biehn, of Terminator fame) is a quiet but inspirational leader to the traumatised troops; while Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) and Hudson (Bill Paxton) are complete opposites, but equally as fascinating. Even the lesser-known characters -- Frost (Ricco Ross), Drake (Mark Rolston) and Sgt. Apone (jazz musician Al Matthews) -- all make memorable contributions.

Though admittedly not your typical, over-the-top, cheesy '80s spectacle, Aliens is packed with a number of action sequences (minus the CGI overload commonly seen in movies today) that are truly spectacular. A particularly chilling encounter with the Alien queen that first explains the origin of the eggs (discounting the deleted scene from the first Alien) is iconic of Weaver's character and the horrifying, threatening nature of the extraterrestrial species.

The fact that the actors playing the marines were also given extensive combat training prior to the making of this film, and the guns they use are based on actual functional weapons, keeps the film grounded pretty close to reality when it could've so easily descended into some silly "outer-space war". Such attention to detail is fascinating, and makes you appreciate the amount of effort that has been put into this project; this is one of those films where you notice something new every time you watch it, and it deserves some serious respect for its ambiguous execution.

Aliens was, and still is, everything a sequel should be and so much more: The characters, pacing, script, special effects, creature/set designs and Jerry Goldsmith's militant score are all incredible, and will keep you coming back to the film for repeat viewings. Even then, when you look deeper, past the strong elements of action, sci-fi and horror, themes such as recovery and empowerment further emphasize that, beyond the visual appeal, this is very much a story about human struggle.

Some may argue that Aliens isn't as "arty" as its predecessor, and to some extent I agree, but I found this sequel to be much more luring into the aggressive and relentless nature of the alien nightmare, made evermore suspenseful by the focus upon the sole survivor of the first encounter, Ellen Ripley. Weaver's performance coupled with Cameron's commitment succeed in taking the franchise into various new territory, making this, for me, the best Alien film of the series, and my favourite film of all time.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2012.