Aliens (1986)

Sidekick:
Private William Hudson (Bill Paxton)

Who?
Hudson is a lowly foot soldier in the interplanetary Marine squadron that accompanies Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) back to a remote planet in search of alien specimens. He distinguishes himself on the battlefield by shouting “fuck!” a lot, and not dying right away like most of his comrades in arms.

Why so useless?
Let’s get this straight: Everyone loves Hudson, and with good reason—with his foul mouth and we’re-all-gonna-die attitude, he’s the most entertaining grunt in the bunch. But what does he actually achieve, beyond a handful of pithy one-liners and a spectacular, tentacular death?

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The 12 most useless sidekicks in movies

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Whether it’s a cute wisecracking kid, a hairy alien copilot or a sassy kung fu assassin, every great movie hero needs a reliable sidekick. But what to do when your partner in crime-fighting turns out to be more of a hindrance than a help? From malfunctioning mechanical owls to bumbling extraterrestrial amphibians, from dead-meat fighter pilots to pratfalling computer hackers, these are the 12 most ineffective movie sidekicks.

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We polled over 50 experts in the field, from essential directors like Die Hard’s John McTiernan to the actual folks in the line of fire, such as Tarantino favorite Zoë Bell (the fearless stuntwoman behind Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies). The result: The 100 best action movies, a definitive look at the genre from the earliest silent classic short film of 1896's “Arrival of Train at La Ciotat” to Marvel's big-screen fighting force of 2012's The Avengers.

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