Aliens (1986)

After almost 30 years Aliens remains probably the best sci-fi action films out there. Released 7 years after Ridley Scott's seminal genre defining masterpiece, Aliens sees the return of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley who, after drifting in space for 57 years after escaping the Nostromo and the Xenomorph that slaughtered her crew, is called upon again by Weyland-Yutani, the shady corporation she worked for as a flight officer.

It becomes apparent that Weyland-Yutani have been busy on LV-426 (the planetoid where Ripley's first crew encountered the Xenomorph.) The geniuses have setup a colony on the desolate world and terraformed it with oxygen generators. Low and behold, they loose contact with the colony and Ripley is sent in with a platoon of colonial marines, and a company slime-ball named Carter Burke.

From the start the film has the same dark and tense atmosphere of the first film. And despite having more of emphasis on action, the characters are just as complex and memorable. Corporal Dwayne Hicks is the replacement to Captain Dallas in that that he is Ripley's closest alley in the group of rag-tag marines - and they soon find themselves in the middle of the alien nest, fighting for their lives against the Xenomorph horde.

A few characters in Aliens mirror those of the first film: Bishop the android for Ash, Hicks for Dallas, and Newt the young girl they discover crawling around the air-ducts of LV-426 represents the daughter that Ripley lost during her many years in hyper sleep. So the characters and plot follow on quite closely to the first film, the only different is the style of film. Aliens is an all-out action fest, here as Alien is a slow burner psychological thriller - a big change that some fans didn't appreciate. So really, Aliens can't really be compared with its predecessor to be fare, they are completely different kinds of film. This fact doesn't make the directing any less brilliant.

James Cameron nailed it with Aliens: well designed weapons, props, vehicles and clothing courtesy of the late H.R. Giger; a great script and characters, and, like all of Cameron's films, a great soundtrack. Still James Cameron's best film for me, and I think it will remain in my top five action-sci-fi's for a long time to come.

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Big Ass Spider (2013)

Compared to the recent b-movie horrors released in the last few years - Big Ass Spider! is one of the better ones, with half decent CGI and some pretty good laughs along the way.

The film starts with a scene of apocalypse, with a gigantic spider destroying skyscrapers in downtown L.A. The only thing that stands in the way of the city being destroyed is Alex Mathis, an exterminator played by Greg "Heroes" Grunberg. After the premonition of destruction scene at the start, the film really starts when Alex Mathis is bitten by a spider while on a job. He's goes to the nearby hospital and has an injection of  anti-venom. Just as he is leaving the hospital, the fire alarm goes off..

The alarm was raised by a pathologist who claims to have been attacked by a huge spider that hatched out of corpse he was working on., Alex is called upon to hunt down the spider.

It soon becomes apparent that this is no ordinary spider, and the military soon arrive to quarantine the hospital. The spider gets bigger and bigger with the more people that it kills and soon escapes the hospital, and goes on a rampage around L.A, followed closely along the way by Alex Mathis and a security guard he met at the hospital.

During his attempt to kill the spider Alex meets an attractive blonde army Sergent - in fact all the women in this film are attractive and have big tits . The death scenes mostly evolve scantly clad women being crushed by the spider. The rest of the film is made up of: swimsuit models running about screaming with their tits bouncing around and cheesy one-liners are what make this film so ridiculous but at the same time so entertaining.

Big Ass Spider! is probably the best b-movie horror of the last five years. A quick popcorn action comedy that shouldn't be taken too seriously. 

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Machete Kills (2013)

I told myself not to take any of Machete Kills seriously before watching. I didn't, and I still struggled thought it, the script was shocking. The film starts with Machete and his partner busting in on a weapons deal between the US army and a Mexican cartel resulting in lots of gunfire and truly shocking dialogue.

Machete is later recruited by the president played by Charlie Sheen, to stop a revolutionary terrorist,who suffers from split personality disorder, from launching an nuclear strike against the US. The rest of the film basically evolves Machete mutilating and killing as many people as possible.

Some of the death scenes are so ridiculous they are actually hilarious, the intestines helicopter death is the best of all. The film is just a showcase of extreme gore and violence with no discernible plot. Just as I thought things couldn't get any worst --Lady Gaga shows up in usual brightly colored attire, attempting to act and failing miserably-- I was even more surprised to see Mel Gibson within a thousand miles of this film.

The one thing that really irritated me was the use of CGI blood everywhere. I mean what happened to practical effects? Even the gunshot wounds were CGI, that's just lazy. Anyway you look at it, lots of explosions and chopping people up doesn't make up for a shocking script, bad acting and ridiculous dialogue. And we still have Machete in Space to look forward to.

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