Aliens (1986)

How do you follow up one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made? Let's look at the poster for Aliens for our answer. To start, you change the director, replacing Ridley Scott with Terminator veteran James Cameron. Add in a few, OK - hundred more of your extraterrestrial antagonists and cap it off by giving your heroine a complete character makeover, with a gun. Should be a recipe for success, right?

Well, to an extent. As sequels (or sci-fi/action movies in general) go, you can't find much of anything negative to say about Aliens. Seven years and several key developments after its predecessor, you find that there are a handful of areas (plot, special effects and action sequences in particular) in which the sequel surpasses the original. But in spite of the advancements that were made, the style changes were too numerous, and the several small victories aren't enough to generate that big win - the one that elevates it past Alien as the franchise's best.

We open with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) drifting unconsciously along in space, as per the conclusion of the last film. After her rescue, lawyer/professional scumbag Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) informs her that 57 years have past since the events aboard her ship, the Nostromo - the destruction of which temporarily loses Ripley her space flight license. However, after contact is lost with the colony aboard planet LV-426, the site of the first film's extraterrestrial encounter, she's coaxed back into action and travels with Burke as part of a rescue team to investigate.

After meeting their team, composed otherwise entirely of a colonial space marine unit, one thing becomes clear: we've said good-bye to pure sci-fi and have moved into more of an action film environment. Gone is the intelligent, calculating crew of the Nostromo, replaced instead with a reckless bunch of über-soldiers (Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, etc.) whose collective M.O. of "shoot first, shoot some more, then investigate" sets the film's overall tone. The thinking man's Alien film has past; this one's for pure adrenaline junkies.

The team lands on LV-426 and immediately discovers a young girl named Newt, who eventually forms a mother-daughter-like bond with Ripley. It's these sort of added depths in the role, along with the grace with which Weaver realized them, that contribute to the franchise's advancement. The majority of Alien saw Ripley as one crew member of seven aboard the Nostromo, whose cool thinking and sharp decision making saw her emerge as a heroine at the end. Here, she's got that distinction from the start, but must also tackle protecting Newt and winning over her new team in addition to strapping on a gun and kicking some alien ass.

Oh yeah...the aliens. Seven years of special-effects enhancements clearly worked wonders for the franchise. When the aliens strike here, they do so mercilessly. To start, there are more of them (hence Aliens being the title, as opposed simply to Alien 2), and they appear to have developed new breeds. And where the original alien walked, these things run, jump, climb and, most importantly, pursue. It's no longer the humans hunting down the aliens; the hunters have become the hunted on LV-426. A new level of peril emerges in the franchise, to the audience's delight. The showdown between Ripley and the film's main newcomer, the Alien Queen, is a real treat - a showcase of action, stunning effects and pure good-over-evil bravado.

But at times, it's all just a bit much, and it feels like they tried a bit too hard. You kind of start to miss the quiet, more haunting sort of film the first was when thrust into the endless spectacle of the second. Aliens ultimately makes one think of another high-profile sequel from a franchise 15-odd years down the road: The Matrix. The two series both started the same way - with films that succeeded by means of effortless confidence. They sucked their audiences in and won them over without even appearing to try. Both of their sequels got bigger, placing greater emphasis on both the action and the antagonists. And while Aliens has nowhere near the disastrous results of Reloaded and Revolutions, it still doesn't quite match up to its predecessor. A very entertaining film, to be sure, but in the end, Alien is still top dog.

3 stars out of 4

7.5/10

Wall-E (2008)

In 2006, Al Gore gave us his Inconvenient Truth - that the dangers of global warming were severe enough to ultimately wipe out the human race. And in spite of the generally warm reception it received, there were still doubters - both in the US and worldwide - still accusations of it being mere political propaganda. The next step, one that would convince people universally of the problem facing the world, needed to be taken. Two years later, in 2008, that step has been taken by an entirely unexpected pioneer - Disney/Pixar's newest film, Wall-E. And what a marvelous step it is.

Wall-E presents an even bleaker picture of the future than Truth. It's set 700 years in the future, as human beings have not only rendered Earth uninhabitable (through pollution and, presumably, climate change), but have also submitted completely to technology. The race now calls space home, and has become one of idle gluttony - dressed, fed, transported and entertained entirely by machines from the aptly-titled Buy 'N Large corporation, whose dominance would have made Carnegie and Rockefeller weep.

It's a profoundly disturbing prognosis. Were it not a Pixar flick, its dystopian forecast would likely drive children and parents alike away from the theater out of fear or denial. (Or both.) But under the command of director Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo), Pixar has done it again - bridging the gap to create a film that is as successful a harrowing social commentary as it is a deeply entertaining family movie.

At the center of it all is Wall-E, a trash compacting robot (Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth-Class) who's the last of his kind left on Earth after a failed cleanup mission in the early 2100's. As the mission sent the human race into space, he's actually the last of any kind left on Earth. So the film begins accordingly with a half hour of, essentially, non-dialog that allows the charismatic robot ("voiced" by Star Wars' veteran sound engineer, Ben Burtt) to win us over. And as he does, we start to see a bit of ourselves in him. He takes care of a pet (a cricket), watches old movies on his iPod (oh, that product placement), collects crates of old toys and even struggles with the ladies.

The "lady" in his life is EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), a robot sent from the humans' current home, the spaceship Axiom, to investigate the sustainability of Earth. We've all experienced this kind of romance: EVE's sleek where Wall-E's a clunker, she's all business while he's just a curious goofball. And as he follows close behind trying to impress her, we start to realize that this is Pixar's most personal creation yet.

The pair ends up returning to the Axiom together, where the robots really run the show. It really makes you question your notions of life; as the obese humans live vicariously through their robotic hovering chairs, the robots are the only ones truly living - performing monotonous chores while also managing to squeeze in games of tennis. And as their time on the Axiom unfolds, the allusions to past science-fiction classics (Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey...hell, even Alien star Sigourney Weaver voices the ship's computer) keep coming, giving us a healthy dose of nostalgia and further cementing the bond between the movie and the audience.

But what makes Wall-E unlike the other sci-fi movies it touches on is that it ultimately presents hope for humanity. What Stanton's saying is that even though the future looks grim, maybe - just maybe - there's a way around it all. It's that lesson that keeps Wall-E grounded, rather than becoming sci-fi overkill like the others. At this point, it would take a miracle to kick start a reverse to global warming. And Wall-E might just be that miracle.

3.5 stars out of 4
8.5/10

Alien (1979)

In the movie industry, true greatness is realized when a film transcends both time and genre. A great film is such without any qualifications necessary. And, nearly 30 years on, Ridley Scott's Alien continues to assert itself in greatness. It's science fiction without stumbling upon cheesiness; it's artistic without being pretentious. Most importantly, it's a movie so enthralling that its run time of two hours feels more like mere minutes passing by.

Scott would again delve into the sci-fi realm with 1982's Blade Runner, but not with the same level of success. The latter was just as futuristic and its conflict just as intriguing, but in spite of it all, it just felt like a bit much. An elevated degree of open-mindedness is required to get through that film, whereas in Alien, Scott somehow weaves everything together to make you feel at home right from the get go - even on a spaceship several hundred years into the future. It also helps having clear-cut heroes and villains; having an alien as an antagonist seems a better fit than a robot playing and looking the part of a human.

Some issues in presentation down the stretch, as well as some expendable roles (Harry Dean Stanton and Veronica Cartwright can hardly be blamed for their characters' shortcomings) ensure that the film is, in fact, human, and thus not perfect. But in spite of these issues, Alien still holds its own better than the majority of modern films - sci-fi or otherwise. How? It keeps us not just interested, but glued - all throughout. If that's not the mark of a great movie, what is?

4 stars out of 4
9/10