Aliens - James Cameron

Commando movies were very popular in the U.S. in the late 70's and throughout the 80's. Movies were the main way the U.S. dealt with the Vietnam War trauma. When you really think about it, making entertainment movies is a very weird catharsis, but I guess different peoples deal with their tragedies in different ways.

Aliens is, among other things, a metaphore about Vietnam: a group of elite soldiers with sophisticated technology enter a hostile territory thinking they will wipe out the enemy in less than 5 minutes, just to discover that their rival is infinitely superior to them.

So, according to that, and contrary to its predecesor, Aliens is an action movie, though the horror component is still there. Aliens has rightfully been praised as a 2-hours shot of action, and is actually one of the best movies of the genre. The negative side is that Aliens banalized the omnipresent and ruthless monster of the first part. In the first part, one alien killed seven people in less than 24 hours; in this part, an entire army of aliens were not able to enter a compound defended by 5 people, one of which was a little girl.

Aliens (and its behind-the-scenes) is a movie worth watching mostly for prospective movie-makers. In light of the special effects available today, modern audiences may not feel as thrilled about its action scenes, and the gore scenes, though impacting back in the day, would make it to a PG-13 movie today.