Fifty years after surviving the extraterrestrial onslaught, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) finally awakens from her slumber only to be informed that the same colony, which has since become inhabited by humans, has now become unresponsive. Equipped with a team of highly trained soldiers, Ripley returns in an advisory position to see that in fact aliens have wiped out the entire population (excepting one little girl) and again finds herself in combat against the snarling, remorseless beasties. James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece is heralded in many corners as the finest achievement in the series, but I find it to be somewhat of a lame and uninspired followup. Cameron turns in a typically lousy screenplay, absent of fresh ideas and replete with cliches and plot devices (i.e. Newt, the little girl). Early on in the picture, you can sense him trying to emulate Scott's slow burn approach, but gradually losing patience, and ultimately resorting to special effects and action film pratfalls. Weaver is expectedly strong again and she is given strong support from Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, and Paul Reiser (although Bill Paxton is downright insufferable). I have no clue how this has attained its stature or how people even have the gumption to rank it over Scott's original. For me, its a typical first sequel: able to skate by on the remaining offerings of the original, but barely bringing anything new to the table.
