Bug Hunt: Aliens

Boy you would think a hardcore James Cameron fan, I would have reviewed this movie by now. Hey gang! Welcome back to the blog. Y'know going through my writing reviews I noticed the total lack of this Action/SciFi film and it left me a bit surprised I never touched base on this movie. Picking up where the 1979 SciFi/Horror Ridley Scott film originated, this is the continuing story of Ellen Ripley and all the craziness she must endure. This is Aliens.

Rough pregnancy.

Directed by James Cameron fresh off of the success of The Terminator, the fate of Ripley, the lone survivor of the Nostromo with her encounter at LV-426 needs accounting. Also that deep freezing may be needed tending to. A deep salvage cargo run finds the escape pod from the Nostromo, finds vital signs on Ripley (Sigourney Weaver of Alien, Half Moon Street, Ghostbusters, Gorillas in the Mist, Working Girl, Ghostbusters II, Dave, Be Kind Rewind, Avatar and The Defenders) and Jonesy so they have to bring her in safely. Imagine how dark a film it would be if they ejected her cryo pod or if we went disturbing sexploitation route. Hey it could have gone there. Not likely in a Cameron film but it could.

57 years have past since her cryo sleep, all her friends and family most likely have died, moved on or out of contact. For details on her daughter,...go play the game Alien: Isolation. Maybe find the cut scenes on YouTube. Someone has bound to have done that by now.

Fine bunch of bad asses!!!

Ripley gives her full accounting of what happened down to detonating the ship and representatives of the company, Weyland-Utani is not pleased. They remain skeptical to her accounts and give her a dressing down to the likes of Chuck Connors' Branded. Aging myself again. The colony that has been terraformed and mining there has seen no evidence of the creature Ripley described in all their surveys of the planet. I mean there is skeptical and there is plain rude. The lot of them needed a Terminator visit, car crash included.

Stripped of her pilot status she is stuck in the loading dock moving cargo. A few months later one of the company's mouthpieces Burke (Paul Reiser of Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop II, Mad About You, Bye Bye Love, The Thing About My Folks, The Story of Us, Strange Relations, Funny People and Stranger Things 2) claims they will restore her flight status if she is a technical advisor on this mission to see the condition of the colony and its people.

Going in with a squad. Yeah one squad of Colonial Marines with the latest firepower and weaponry she should be just fine. With a heavy heart and hopes that they will exterminate the creatures, Ripley goes on the mission.

Momma looks grumpy

Lt. Gorman (William Hope of To Save the Children, The Saint, As Time Goes By, c-12: Final Resistance, Sword of Honour, xXx, Headhunter: Redemption, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Spiders 3D) and his combatants stand ready to investigate the colony after breakfast, weapons prep and mission debrief. Still love that Sgt. Apone (Al Matthews of Aliens, Superman III, Funny Money, The Comic Strip, The Apocalypse Watch and Aliens: Colonial Marines) was one of the first black men earning the rank of Sergant in the Vietnam war, so yelling at grunts was nothing new. With faces like Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton and Lance Henrikson, please appreciate I do not want to write out their entire lengthy filmography.

Still cracks me up that Schwartzenegger is the reason for Biehn and Paxton to look shredded like they did for the film. A few tips to beef up and stay stronger. Thanks Arnold!

No sooner has their drop ship landed and an armored personnel carrier is zooming about, the colony seems completely deserted with signs of re-inforced welding and small arms fire discharge. Yet no bodies.

The marines move in and are limited to using lighter weapons due to heading around the reactor. Yeah armor piercing rounds going through the reactor that is clearly thermonuclear could be...bad.

With minimal life signs the colonists are embedded in the walls, almost cocooned there. THERE WAS A FIRE FIGHT!!! Oh sorry. Wrong film.

Creatures start coming out of the walls attacking and dragging away marines and the rest have to leg it away. Ripley brings the APV in to their location and saves them.

With the need for a mass evac underway, the drop ship and its crew are maimed and blown up thanks to more of the creatures. Stuck on the planet, the marines barricade themselves, take watch and formulate a plan to escape. With the only resident not taken by the creatures, Newt (Carrie Henn of Aliens) explains they hunt at night so they need to stay indoors.

Now I am reviewing the special edition of Aliens, giving more looks at the colony prior to the infestation, the armament aside from pulse rifles and the M56 Smartguns with gyro mounts but it also shows Ripley's struggle in her new role as a dock worker and how life had slapped her in the face. And my personal favorite of big toys, the UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns. 4 of these bad boys with display screen, scanners and 500 round drums.

Will the team survive until help arrives in 17 days? Can the creatures wipe them out?

So overall this version is superior to the theatrical release in the sense of wanting more story. It clocks out at 2 hours and 50 minutes instead of the theatrical 2 hours and 34 minutes. OoOo a whole 17 minutes more but it really makes the difference as far as story telling instead of just the straight up action sequences. I would recommend both versions. I just prefer the special edition.

HOW'S MY BREATH??!!!

Random Movie: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Welcome back readers. I found something interesting. The ratings board put the first three Planet of the Apes under a "G" rating. With gunfights, weapons battles, blood and mild swearing that was a "G" rating. Huh. Could learn something there modern day MPAA. Today is a film that was apparently too violent for the youngins in the crowd they had to bump it up to PG. Savagery, slavery and monstrous behavior on both fronts. This is Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

Ricardo, someone pinched my butt.

Yeah yeah, back to the damn dirty apes joke blah blah. We return to a totalitarian police state of the United States. In this future a virulent plague wiped out small animals so the natural conclusion is to train apes to be household pets, servants and in general, enslavement. Guess sign language for fresh fruit and bounding around wasn't entertaining enough for the humans.

We catch up with Armando (Ricardo Montalban of Space Seed, The Train Robbers, Wonder Woman, The Mark of Zorro, Joe Panther, Police Story, Fantasy Island, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Spy Kids 3: Game Over), the circus owner and follower of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals is back in town to provide amusement to those under tyrannical reign.

Now you all clean up your poops!

 

Milo now named Caesar (Roddy McDowell of The Felony Squad, Planet of the Apes, 5 Card Stud, Night Gallery, A Taste of Evil, The Poseidon Adventure, The Legend of Hell House, Fright Night and Batman The Animated Series) Cornelius and Zira's son from Escape from the Planet of the Apes all grown up baffled why all humans are not like Armando. Armando explains that subterfuge is the only way he can survive and not exhibit higher intelligence or the power of speech because the government fears an ape revolt that will overthrow humanity.

Police states implement order!!!

City Controller Breck (Don Murray of Bus Stop, A Hatful of Rain, Endless Love, Soldier of Fortune, Wings, The Single Guy and Island Prey) is adamant that he will be the man to find Cornelius and Zira's offspring and destroy him for the sake of humanity. So clearly enslaving his people should win him over. Meanwhile his assistant Malcolm (Hari Rhodes of Daktari, Shock Corridor, Detroit 9000, Coma, The Fall Guy, Magnum P.I., Donor and Cover Up) bites his tongue on the racist tendencies shown by white men in power and abusing their authority. May hit too close to home but he does his level best to rein him in when it looks like he is going over the top.

Armando is scooped up by Ape Control which is pretty much this future's Gestapo. Seriously, right down to the all black uniforms, sashes on their arms and brutal mentality. Caesar called the lot bastards and Armando takes the blame without hesitation. They go to town on Armando with beatings and lie detectors trying to find out if he knows whereabouts of Milo now known as Caesar. Knowing his number is up, Armando sacrifices himself to save Caesar.

Caesar infiltrates Ape Control, bides his time and prepares to go to war. Humans stole his parents and his surrogate parent. Revenge on them and liberation of his people is all that is on his mind. With observations of routine and lazy behavior of his human captors, Caesar prepares to win over his people, arm them and mount bloody retribution.

Will the humans survives this? Will apes dominate the world? Can a compromise be made?

The inherent cruelty to the apes pushes this animal lover's buttons something fierce until you remember, "Oh right, those are guys in costume. Unpucker, butthole." Once again SciFi doesn't pull punches about classism, racism and separation covered all in this one film. Subjugation is a way of life that no one seems to question or if they do, it is never out loud. A handful of picketing lines about waiters getting the shaft but other than that, no one even speaks up for the apes. Complete governmental control is as common as breathing and the people don't speak up about curfews, big brother watching its citizens' purchases and work environment?

I mean c'mon. This is exactly what the Trump administration wishes they could get away with.

I won't fib. Of all five of the original Apes films, this is probably the most violent. Do I think the modern day children will be horribly scarred if they watch it? Nah. I would have loved to have seen all five in the theater as a kid rather than chopped up for TV. Hell I didn't see Planet of the Apes unvarnished until I was 25 and at an art theater. So if you enjoyed the previous three films, yes catch this one as well. If anything my own complaint about this movie was the same with the previous three. I just had to go and get the letterbox version. If these flicks don't interest you at all, well why were you reading this review?   Seems a tad silly. 

Ape terrorists equal gorilla warfare.