1984 science fiction, dir. James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Arnold
Schwarzenegger: IMDb /
allmovie. Two
soldiers from the future fight to kill, or save, the mother of the
revolution.
This was expected to be just another disposable 1980s action
film, maybe a step on the road to better things for some of the people
involved, but not impressive in itself. And looking at it, there's
quite a bit of what I now recognise as Eighties action filler: for
example, here's the shot where they drive along the pavement for no
obvious reason, which adds nothing to the progress of the story but
takes up a bit of screen time.
But what it gets right, what Cameron at his best does get right, is
the two-way flow of information between plot and action: because of
these character moments, the next action scene looks like this, and
the outcome of the action feeds into the way the next talky bit will
work. This seems as though it ought to be obvious, but I think the
more common approach to action film is what you see in Raiders of the
Lost Ark, to start with the set-pieces (constrained by budgets and
practicality), then paste in some cursory material to link them
together.
(And for me "Cameron at his best" is bookended by this and Terminator
2, with Aliens and The Abyss in between. True Lies has its
fans, but plenty of other directors could have done it just as well.
Then there was Titanic. And Avatar.)
I'm perhaps less impressed by Linda Hamilton than I should be; I saw
Terminator 2 before I saw this, and by comparison here she's
screechy as well as, more reasonably, terrified. It's fair enough, I
suppose, but it's a bit drawn-out for my taste. On the other hand we
do have the Standard Feminism Trope that shows up repeatedly in
Cameron's films, though for me the best example is in Blood Simple:
although all the good guys have tried to help the female lead,
eventually they all fail and she has to do the necessary thing on her
own.
On the other hand, Michael Biehn got the part because, among lots of
actors who were happy to portray tough guys, he was the one who also
showed something like empathy, making the somewhat forced story of a
true love that finds its culmination in the few hours when both
parties are actually alive seem more like something that could
actually happen.
And Arnie… well, he was probably still known more as a bodybuilder
than as an actor at this point. But he takes advantage of that to make
his face look even more unnatural, and while he doesn't have many
lines his physical acting is great. (Not exactly an "infiltration
unit", but hey ho.)
Stan Winston did the effects, which almost work – but there's that
one sequence, of the skeleton walking along a catwalk, which shows
that it just doesn't have the inertia that a solid metal object ought
to have. Oh well. On the other hand there's a moment when Sarah is
flung along a wall by the fuel tanker explosion which is just
perfect.
I can certainly see the flaws here, but everything works at least
reasonably well and most of it better than that.
If you want more of my witterings, you should listen to
Ribbon of Memes.
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