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Terrific film: the pace builds slowly but relentlessly culminating in a series of heart stopping scenes

Essentially a war film set in space we follow a troop of soldiers and a couple of civilians investigating why a colony of settlers have suddenly stopped communicating- needless to say the reason is not anything pleasant.

Additionally, there is an entire cast of memorable characters but none more so than the redoubtable Ellen Ripley; a heroine for the ages.

Of course the real stars of the film are the xenomorph aliens who surely take their place near the pinnacle in the pantheon of great ( and terrifying) monsters of cinema.

Aliens is not only the greatest sci fi film of the 80s it is one of the best full stop.

This film looks all shiny and slick and the promise of the first ten minutes or so gulled me into hoping that here, at last we have a substantial successor to the first pair of Alien masterpieces. But alas these hopes were all to quickly dashed.

What is it that sometimes seems to occur during a films production process that seems to take the focus away from what is the most important element of any drama: the script?

I'm sure the makers thought they'd assembled all the key ingredients (like the creators of David): top director-check; attractive actors- check; gross out special effects-check (although these lack convincing gravity actually).but they forgot to pay due attention to getting the story straight, or creating believable characters ( why would you populate a spaceship with emotionally unstable operatives?).

This is not a terrible film, merely another disappointment. But then again is expecting lightning to strike three times a bit too much to hope for.

First the good news. This is a really meaty piece of sci fi .full of ideas neatly strung together into a compelling and satisfyingly complex plot. Nothing thin about this narrative as it deals with the Earth shaking events that arise from the reality of alien contact.. 3bp does a good job of suggesting how this event might impact on human society even if the invasion will not happen for 400 years. This detail allows for plot nuance as arguments.arise concerning the merits of committing vast resources to something that will not happen for nearly half a millennium.

On a human scale 3bp serves up some interesting sub plots- illness and unrequited love among them.

And the bad news? Well there's not too much.

The casting ofsome main characters is a bit uninspired but not terrible. And the production values sometimes look a bit drab.