Aliens is set 57 years after the first film in the series.  Ripley has been drifting through space all this time and her ship is finally discovered.  She tells Earth of what happened to the crew of the Nostromo, problem is nobody believes her!  In fact they have already started colonizing the planet where the horrors of the first film occured.  Ripley forces herself to accompany a mission to check on the colonists, whom contact has been lost with, in the hope that she can help save them before it's too late...

Compared to Alien, Aliens has much more of the frantic kind of horror with sections of constant action.  But it also recreates the dreadful tension of the first film quite masterfully, especially near the beginning of the film.  There's also one of the most terrifying scenes of the entire series when Ripley is trapped in the Med Bay!

So what of the extended scenes?  Whole sections were taken off the cutting room floor and reinserted back into the film and I find it to be a more complete experience.  The storyline is fleshed out to such a degree that the 154 minutes are entirely justified.  It never feels too long, there are no scenes which make you wish they were over already.

I give Aliens five mice because it's a tremendous film from start to finish.