Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that the relentless, ravenous clawed monsters here are likely to give small kids (and others) nightmares. This is a violent feature, even more so than the original Alien. Besides the rerun of the grisly moment when embryonic aliens burst out of people (in reality and in dream scenes), we also see quick cuts of victims seared with acid, getting set on fire, and blowing themselves up with a grenade. Most disturbing of all -- or, at least, the most nakedly manipulative -- is the perpetual threat of ghastly violence/death/contamination being directed at a frightened, screaming little girl. There's also a plethora of swearing and lots of adoring fondling of guns and high-powered weapons.
Families can talk about the military metaphor in the film; it's said James Cameron deliberately had Vietnam on his mind when he depicted a group of gung-ho Marines charging into tunnels only to get shredded to pieces by hordes of an enemy that keeps on coming. Do you think this applies to the Gulf Wars as well? What could the characters have done differently? Do you believe in the showdown between the bereaved mother Ripley and the monstrous mother alien "queen"?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
This sequel to Alien is bigger, faster, and way more amped-up than the moody, gothic-style interplanetary chills of the original. If it errs, it does so when director James Cameron insists on squeezing every last cliffhanger out of a nightmare scenario about being stranded in a remote place with a bunch of vicious, clawed creatures out to get you.
Coming out at a time when gun-fetish action movies (especially Rambo) set the pace for much of the 1980s, it won fans on both sides of the aisles, from the action freaks to the horror-sci-fi set, who read profound feminist meaning into the fresh casting of Sigourney Weaver as a butt-kicking female action heroine (way before butt-kicking action heroines got trendy -- think Charlie's Angels). Her Ellen Ripley character, sole human to survive the alien onslaught of the earlier film, is found drifting in space in suspended animation and revived. She's shocked to discover that more than a half-century has gone by, and her family, including her little daughter, are all dead.
Furthermore Earth authorities, apparently dominated by a nameless, amoral Company that controls most everything, don't believe her account of her crew massacred by an alien parasite. And they've started to colonize the distant planet where Ripley's crew was attacked.
Blackballed into doing menial spaceport jobs, Ripley is summoned by a slimy Company executive (Paul Reiser) when communications with the colony are lost. He convinces her to go back to the planet with a massively armed squad of tough, swaggering interplanetary Marines, who are itching for action and don't pay much attention to Ripley's warnings about the monsters. When they first find the human colony it seems deserted, except for a cowering girl named Newt (Carrie Henn). But a little more searching -- and nightfall -- bring out the aliens; hundreds of jaw-snapping, fanged, acid-bleeding horrors, unafraid of guns, who cut through the panicked Marines. It's Ripley who has to take charge of the mission (and uncover yet more Company treachery) if any of them are going to get away alive.
James Cameron conjures up a strong Vietnam metaphor (or Gulf War, or US military misadventure of your choice) when he depicts proud, gung-ho warriors charging into battle with their fancy hardware, only to get shredded to pieces by hordes of a primitive enemy that keeps on coming. It's such a strong idea that the film is more than a little hard to take seriously when Ripley, forsaking even body armor, slaps together a gun-flamethrower combo and charges alone into the alien nest to rescue Newt, confronting the super-sized queen alien.
The director really seems to go over the line with the manipulation, putting the screaming little (orphan) girl in hideous peril every time the opportunity arises, and conniving to make sure that opportunity always does. Commentators love to point out, though, that both Ripley and the queen alien are essentially driven by mothering instincts -- Ripley to find a replacement for the child she lost while is suspended animation -- and they serve as mirror images of each other.
With the success of Aliens came further sequels. Viewers of all ages should be warned that Alien 3 opens grimly with the death of Newt and the one Marine who was shaping up to be Ripley's love interest. It's sure not as much of a crowd pleaser.
Fans of this movie will also like the fierce beings in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and the South Korean creature movie The Host.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentIndistinct glimpses of pin-up pictures in a locker room. Some mildly suggestive banter between co-ed Marines. |
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ViolenceMostly in quick flashes, but still severe, as human characters are splashed with acid, torched with fire, or have little aliens bursting out of them. One man is literally torn in half, with the qualifier that "he" is an android, not human, with beige-colored blood and viscera. Gunfire, bombs, and flamethrowers are directed at the aliens. Much of the violence and lethal danger is threatened against a small child. |
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Language"F--k" and "a--hole" in soldierly banter and anger. |
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Social BehaviorA corporate executive character who claims to be "an OK guy" is really murderous and treacherous in his greed. What little we see of the world of the future seems dominated by evil businessmen and bullying soldiers. The multiracial "Colonial Marines" are overconfident, swaggering braggarts. Ripley, on the other hand, turns from the fear-paralyzed victim of the last film into a tough, idealized action-heroine. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSocial drinking. |
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