Last time we met Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), she was a survivor. This time, shes a fighter. Hardly surprising given that, for this sequel to 1979s Alien, Ridley Scott has been replaced in the directors chair by James Cameron – and we all know Jamesy likes his leading ladies to kick some serious booty. Draw parallels, if you will, to the transformation of Sarah Connor from mop-topped wimp to muscle-bound chick-man in Camerons Terminator movies, and youre on the right lines.
This ones set a whopping 57 years on from the original, and Ripley, fairly understandably, has got issues. The alien she blasted into space at the end of episode 1 still pops up in her nightmares and, having heard her explanation of what went on aboard the Nostromo, everyone back on Earth thinks shes bonkers. The only thing is, theyre about to start believing her big-time when a human colony goes missing from that same planet where last we saw John Hurt having his face sucked off.
Before long, the Ripsters been talked into joining a crack team of hard-butt marines in exploring the planet to find out whats gone wrong. Gulp.
Where last time we had a horror movie, Camerons masterpiece is an all-out action-packed rocket-launcher of a film, with Ripley and pals battling tooth and nail against a seemingly endless stream of snarling space beasties. Theres a considerably larger cast on board (that goes for both the humans and the aliens, come to think of it), which means pivotal roles for the likes of Michael Biehn, Paul Reiser and Lance Henriksen.
Carrie Henn is also thrown into the mix as Newt, the gutsy-but-noisy little girl who easily rivals any B-movie damsel in the screaming stakes. The tagline last time famously told us that, in space, nobody can hear you scream and youd certainly need to be a couple of planets away not to pick up Newts high-pitched shrieking.