Everyman
Aliens is not very good.I had it in my head that Aliens-plural is a radically different film from Alien-singular. The original (I thought) is a horror film; a haunted house or serial killer tale that happens to be set in space. The sequel (I thought) is a war story, an action adventure about space-marines which happens to involve the same wee timorous beastie that in the previous instalment wiped out everyone except the cat. In fact, having now watched the two films in close proximity, Aliens-plural now feels like ponderous retread. Seven years had passed in the real world; so Aliens-plural is less like a sequel than revisiting a beloved classic. There were no Blockbuster Video Stores back them: most people would have had only the haziest memory of the Ridley Scott movie; and doubtless it had become more terrifying in their memories than it had ever been in the Screen Two of the Barnet Odeon.
Considered as a piece of Alien-singular fan-fiction the set up is pretty good. We know from the first film that there were dozens and dozens of eggs on the moon where John Hurt had his unfortunate encounter with the face-hugger; so obviously the plot involves Ripley returning to check the place out. But if aliens are so dangerous and so vulnerable to fire, obviously the sensible thing to do would be to (to coin a phrase) nuke the site from orbit: which would have been a bit like flying to Mordor on giant Eagles. Hence the elegant plot-twist. Half a century has passed; there is now a human colony on the moon; so Ripley and some sweary solider boys have got to go on a long trip and find out what is is going on. Nothing good, it transpires.
Compared with the first film, it's very crowded. Where Alien-singular had seven fairly well characterised crewmen, Alien-plural has a dozen indistinguishable marines. When the first film had a single monster on a huge ship, this has rooms full of baddies. There are some points of human drama and psychological interest: Ripley doesn't trust the android, because of what happened in part one; the slimy company rep wants to bring an alien home and Ripley doesn't think this is a great idea. Some of the marines have single-note character traits -- the arrogant, cheeky one; the scared one; and the one with the cigar. Introducing the little girl must have seemed like a good idea on paper, but it doesn't quite work. Newt's only function is to scream; and Carrie Henn screams like a child actor screaming, not like a traumatised child in a war-zone. Ripley crawling along corridors alone or with a cat and some scary music was pretty dramatic; Ripley crawling along corridors saying "Careful Newt, I'll find you Newt, it's okay Newt" quickly becomes annoying. Newt's presence makes the androgynous Ripley into a maternal figure and therefore more specifically womanly: which arguably makes the film more feminist than its prequel, but on the other hand, arguably doesn't. The end-of-level guardian is specifically said to be a Queen; and there is the "Every been mistaken for a man" gag about the butch female space marine, neither of which helps very much.
Once the film gets underway, it exhibits most of the defects of Alien-singular but few of the first film's strengths. The first big set piece on the colony, with the marines exploring corridors and being wiped out by critters seems to go on forever. It is supposed to be tense, but if we have seen the first film, or indeed any other film ever, we know exactly what is going to happen. The really nasty attribute of the alien -- that it's a parasite that gestates in other life forms -- barely features in the movie. There is a recreation of a the chest-burster sequence from Alien-singular, with the nasty worm-thing squeezing out of Ripley's belly-button; but that [SPOILER] that turns out to be a dream. (Imagine if Ripley, like Janet Leigh, had been unexpectedly killed off right at the beginning of the movie, releasing an Alien on earth....?) The aliens are now just giant bugs which are very hard to kill, except with flame throwers. The film hovers between the grammar of an action movie and the grammar of Alien-singular. The good guys are a well armed and largely competent military unit but the bad guys are mostly seen in brief, sudden cut-aways involving too many teeth. We don't get a good look at the full-grown alien, but we do see the gigantic alien mother, which is frightening but cool in the same way a giant dinosaur is frightening but cool, making the film's climax feel a bit like Godzilla versus King Kong.
You can see the construction lines just a little bit too clearly. When she's on earth and out of work, Ripley mentions that she's working in a warehouse; when the marines come out of cold storage, she shows that she's very good at operating the mechanical load lifters, which look like robotic exoskeletons. So, of course, she uses one of the machines as a weapon to fight the uber-alien at the climax. Bishop plays mumpletypeg with a knife specifically so Ripley can see a drop of white blood and realise he's an android. There just happens to be a nuclear reactor above the corridor where the marines first encounter the aliens so the marines have to surrender their ammo and get slaughtered. Near the end of the movie, nice music starts playing and Ripley tells Newt that it's all over and everything okay; and then a great big alien appears. I don't know if this is good writing or bad writing but it's definitely writing.
The film has its moments. She doesn't have bad dreams because she's only a piece of plastic. What do you want us to use, harsh language? Nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure. But it isn't heroic enough to be a war movie or scary enough to be a horror movie. After six or seven hours of exploring corridors I mainly just wanted it to be over; although the final battle, false ending and load-lifter and android and airlock and all, did partly claw back my interest. It's just too clear who are the player characters and who are the NPCs. Yes, sure, it's a drag that a face-hugger got loose in the bedroom but we know it's going to turn out fine because it's clearly not Ripley or Newt's turn to be killed yet.
The contrarian in me is intending to watch Alien vs Predator next month, in the sincere hope that I will think it is the best in the series.
I'm Andrew.
I am trying very hard to be a semi-professional writer and have taken the leap of faith of down-sizing my day job.
If you enjoy these reviews, please consider leaving a tip on the Ko-Fi platform.
If you can afford it, please consider becoming a Patreon, by pledging £1 or more each time I publish an essay on the main blog. (I don't charge for these little reviews.)
Please do not feed the troll.
2 comments:
Agreed. Alien-singular is a fun movie with an industrial spaceship full of now-obsolete technology, Aliens-plural is a lot of action and not nearly enough characters to give a damn about. But did you see the original theatrical version of Aliens-plural? Or the director's cut which restored cut scenes? Because that makes a considerable difference storywise. We get to see Newt's family and we understand that Ripley had a daughter that she outlived thanks to the wonders of cryogenic spacetravel. The extended cut is clearly a better movie and the original version pales in comparison.
Interestingly when I saw the first two at the cinema I felt the opposite way around. Alien was too long and drawn out, with long scenes of not much happening while we panned across alien landscapes, Aliens was taught and fun, with lots of exciting tension in it.
I shall watch them again in a decade or so, and let you know what I (and Sophia) think of them.
Post a Comment