(This retrospective is dedicated to the memory of James Cameron’s longtime producer Jon Landau (1960-2024))
In the film industry, there aren’t a lot of filmmakers who have
a legacy as considerably vast as James Cameron’s. Case in point, at the time of
this post’s publication, Cameron is responsible for three of the top 5 highest-grossing
films of all time, and apart from a brief period where Avengers: Endgame overtook
the top spot in 2019, a James Cameron film has been known for being the
highest-grossing film of all-time for nearly the past three decades. Since
2009, that honor has gone to his ambitious sci-fi epic Avatar, and in
2022, 13 years after the original’s release, Cameron finally brought audiences
back into the world of Pandora with Avatar: The Way of Water, a film
that defied the odds to become just as critically and commercially successful
as its predecessor. However, this was only the beginning of Cameron’s plans to
continue the story of the Na’vi as he also has three more Avatar films
in the works; the third, recently confirmed to be titled Avatar: Fire and
Ash, was filmed in conjunction with The Way of Water and is being
primed for a December 2025 release while production is currently underway on
the fourth film, set for a December 2029 release. But as we begin the process
of waiting for our third trip to the world of Pandora, it’s time to reflect
upon the career of one of the most well-known directors in the industry. Yes,
folks, it’s time for another edition of what has, admittedly, been a
long-dormant series here on Rhode Island Movie Corner, the Directorial Retrospectives,
where I take as complete a look as I can at any given director’s filmography. However,
just like the Michael Bay retrospective that I did several years ago, this one
will ultimately be much more than just a single post. Given the cultural impact
of his last three directorial efforts, which have each grossed over $2 billion at
the box office, I decided that it’d only be fitting to give both Titanic and
the first two Avatar films their own full-length reviews. And so,
without further ado, it’s time to see why today’s director can quite arguably
call himself ‘the king of the world’ as we look back upon the pre-1997 filmography
of the one and only James Cameron.
PIRANHA II: THE
SPAWNING (1982)
James Cameron primarily got his start in the industry working
in the visual effects department on films produced by Roger Corman, the
legendary B-movie producer who also helped launch the careers of other
filmmakers such as Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese. And
in 1982, Cameron made his official feature-length directorial debut with the
sequel to Corman’s studio New World Pictures’ 1978 release Piranha,
which was one of the early works of another Corman protégé, Joe Dante. However,
Corman was not involved with the sequel which, by all accounts, was an
incredibly rough production for a first-time director like Cameron. For
starters, due in large part to the production’s limited budget, the bulk of the
film’s crew consisted of non-English speaking Italians; however, at the very
least, they had enough experience in the horror genre to deliver what Cameron
was looking for. Ultimately, Cameron’s biggest hurdle on the project was his frequent
arguments with executive producer Ovidio G. Assonitis over the direction he was
taking the film in. As a result, it’s been widely reported that Assonitis ended
up firing Cameron after just two weeks and filmed the rest of it himself,
though, admittedly, this has been debated over the years. Nevertheless, it’s
also been reported that Cameron was forbidden from partaking in the film’s
post-production process (to the point where he even broke into where the film
was being edited in Rome to work on it before he got caught), thus resulting in
a unique situation where there are technically two publicly available cuts of
this film. Given everything that I just noted about its hectic post-production
process, the widely released cut of the film that can currently be found on
Blu-Ray is, by all accounts, the one that Assonitis was directly in charge of.
However, Cameron did end up getting the opportunity to release his own cut of
the film thanks to a distribution deal that he made with Embassy Home
Entertainment. This version of the film is about ten minutes shorter but, at
the time of this post’s publication, is only commercially available on the
outdated video formats of VHS and Laserdisc.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: Now,
despite what I just said about Cameron’s cut not having been released in years
and, thus, only being available on older video formats, both versions of this
film can currently be found on YouTube. For today’s retrospective (and since
I’m sure James Cameron wouldn’t mind it all that much since he doesn’t bring
this film up in conversation all that often (and really, can you blame him?)),
I watched Ovidio G. Assonitis’ cut due to its better video quality. For those
who are curious, some of the biggest differences between the two cuts include
Cameron’s cut lacking scenes of nudity (which, by most accounts, was something
that Cameron wasn’t involved with) and including a unique visual style that, like
what Steven Spielberg did with the shark in Jaws, represents POV shots from
the perspective of the piranhas.)
Really, though, all the crazy things that happened during
this film’s production are ultimately more interesting to talk about than the
film itself. Yes, at the end of the day, Piranha II: The Spawning is nothing
more than your standard schlocky horror film that, like many other of its peers
at the time, was mainly created to capitalize on the success of Jaws. The
acting is hokey (not even future Cameron regular Lance Henriksen can save this
one), all the characters are one-note, and much of the early parts of this film
feel incredibly disjointed as it jumps from scene to scene and minor side
character to minor side character. Thus, the only major thing that this film
has going for it is its sequences involving flying piranhas (yes, you read that
right, flying piranhas) that, given the film’s low budget, look incredibly
cheap as hell. For what it’s worth, though, James Cameron was able to use some
of the visual effect techniques used to create these airborne aquatic beasts to
much better effect when designing the face-hugger animatronics in Aliens.
Plus, if I were to give this film any sort of credit, the flying piranhas do
give this sequel at least one major advantage over its predecessor since it
allows for some actual on-screen piranha attacks (which, to be clear, is not a
dig against the original Piranha, which is obviously still the better film
by comparison). That said, though, this is also very much a ‘sequel in name
only’ as none of the main characters from the original Piranha return
for this film, which only references the events of its predecessor once in its
entirety. And so, with all that in mind, it’s easy to see why James Cameron
spent many years distancing himself from this project even though it technically counts as his directorial debut. To be fair, you can’t fault
him for how it turned out given everything he had to deal with when he
made it… but at the same time, it goes without saying that his subsequent
directorial outings ended up being a lot better than this one.
Rating: 1/5
THE TERMINATOR
(1984)
Luckily for James Cameron, there was ultimately one silver
lining from the hellish production that was Piranha II as one fateful
night in Rome during its post-production ended up becoming the catalyst for the
project that truly launched his directorial career. After experiencing a
fever-induced nightmare in which a humanoid-looking robot emerged from a fiery explosion,
Cameron used this image to create a story about a young woman named Sarah
Connor who finds herself hunted by a seemingly unstoppable cyborg known as a
Terminator who was sent back in time from the year 2029 by Skynet, an advanced
A.I. system that would gain sentience and wipe out most of humanity in an
all-out nuclear war. All the while, Sarah is protected by a lone human soldier
named Kyle Reese who was also sent back in time, albeit in his case by Sarah’s
future son John, the leader of the resistance movement fighting against Skynet
in the post-apocalyptic future and, naturally, the reason why she’s being
hunted now. Upon its release, the film became an unexpected smash hit, grossing
over $78 million on its modest $6.4 million budget and eventually spawning one
of the most iconic science fiction film franchises of all time. Sure, many have
argued that the franchise would ultimately peak with the two films that were
directed by Cameron himself, with every other installment since then (only one
of which saw any direct involvement from Cameron) failing to live up to the widespread
acclaim of Cameron’s films, but nevertheless, there’s no denying Terminator’s
ever-enduring influence on the sci-fi genre.
However, even with all that said, it is interesting to look
back at the first Terminator when compared to all the films that would
come after it. Whereas everything starting with 1991’s Terminator 2:
Judgment Day is a big-budget sci-fi action spectacle, the first Terminator…
is decidedly not that. Instead, it’s more of a small-scale horror film that thoroughly
maintains the horror genre’s well-established premise of a young woman hunted
by an imposing killer. And thanks in large part to Cameron’s reliance on nighttime-set
action sequences and the overall look and feel of a noir film with its seedy
exterior locales and claustrophobic interior locales, the original Terminator
has a surprisingly effective (and, when compared to its sequels, arguably
quite refreshing) grounded atmosphere in which the sci-fi elements of its story
are almost second fiddle to everything else that’s going on. Case in point, Cameron
even manages to apply this low-key style to the sequences that showcase the post-apocalyptic
future that Reese came from, which are naturally expanded upon in terms of
scale in subsequent films. In other words, while there are undoubtedly some
parts of this film that have become dated (e.g. the stop-motion animation movement
of the titular antagonist when he’s nothing more than a robotic frame), Cameron
utilized his minimal budget to its fullest effect in the same way that he works
nowadays with the big budgets of the blockbusters that he’s very well known for.
The result is a highly engaging action-thriller that’s fully bolstered by the
strong performances from its three main leads: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the
hulking Terminator, Linda Hamilton as the sympathetic heroine Sarah Connor, and
Michael Biehn as the heroic warrior from the future, Kyle Reese. And while it’s
probably safe to say that most Terminator fans tend to list its
follow-up as their favorite installment of the series, this first film still
holds up quite well on its own accord.
Rating: 5/5!
ALIENS (1986)
(DISCLAIMER: For
today’s retrospective, I watched this film’s extended cut, which was first
released on LaserDisc in 1991 (though, for the record, this is not in reference
to what could technically be described as the film’s ‘first’ extended cut,
which aired on CBS in 1989). I previously reviewed this film back in 2017 as
part of a retrospective on the Alien franchise and did so by watching
the original theatrical cut, with both versions of the film being available on
its home media releases. In this instance, I decided to check out the Extended
Edition for the first time since Cameron has gone on record stating that he prefers
this version of the film.)
It's safe to say that things were going quite great for
James Cameron after the success that he and his producing partner Gale Anne
Hurd had achieved with The Terminator, which led to him netting other
notable projects such as, most interestingly in hindsight, the screenplay for 1985’s
Rambo: First Blood Part II. Yes, Cameron had a hand in developing the
Sylvester Stallone-led action-packed follow-up to 1982’s First Blood;
granted, Stallone would then go on to rewrite the script himself, but Cameron
still got credited in the end and later went on record stating that his action
sequences were the parts of his script that remained in the final film.
Ultimately, though, Cameron’s first big endeavor after The Terminator would
come when he was brought on to write and direct the highly anticipated sequel
to Ridley Scott’s genre-defining 1979 sci-fi horror classic Alien. Unfortunately
for Cameron, production didn’t exactly go smoothly for him as he had to deal
with the standard filmmaking practices of the production’s U.K.-based crew,
such as the daily tea breaks that resulted in lost production time. Cameron’s
infamously aggressive nature and tendency to oversee aspects of the production himself
also irked many crewmembers (to the point where the film’s original
cinematographer Dick Bush was replaced because of creative differences over
lighting), who felt that he wasn’t qualified enough to direct a film of this
nature. It didn’t help that The Terminator hadn’t been released in the
U.K. at that time and any attempts by Cameron to have his crew watch it were
unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Hurd, in what was only her second film as a lead
producer after Terminator, was viewed as being there simply because she
was Cameron’s wife (at the time) rather than the stalwart producer that she’d
become known for thanks to films like this and the long-running Walking Dead
TV series.
But thankfully for all involved, Aliens proved to be
just as much of a hit as its immediate predecessor upon its release. It earned
over $130 million at the worldwide box office and was regarded by many as being
just as good as the original Alien if not arguably better. As he would
later go on to do with Terminator 2, Cameron injects a more
action-oriented tone into Aliens’ plot, in which Lt. Ellen Ripley, the
sole survivor of the Nostromo massacre, is brought in with a crew of
Colonial Marines to deal with an alien outbreak on LV-426, the planet that she
and her old crew had visited that set the plot of the previous film into motion
which is now the site of a terraforming colony. However, unlike Terminator 2,
which almost entirely abandoned the original’s horror beats in favor of its
sci-fi action, Aliens does manage to maintain its franchise’s prolific
status in the horror genre in all the right places. Even with the change in
location from a lone spaceship to a derelict space colony, Cameron still gets
to work with the Alien franchise’s trademark penchant for dark, foreboding,
and horrifyingly cramped locales albeit with the added benefit of having its
protagonists being forced to deal with more aliens this time around rather than
just one. But, of course, as we’ve well established by now, Aliens is
ultimately one of the first major showcases of Cameron’s talents as an action
director, which is then bolstered by some strong visual effects work to bring
its alien creatures to life. Sure, Aliens may not have had the benefit
of the involvement of H.R. Giger, AKA the creator of the titular Alien, but
with Cameron’s Terminator effects guru Stan Winston onboard to take his
place… well, let’s just say that it’s easy to see why this resulted in Winston
winning his first Oscar for Best Visual Effects at that year’s Oscars just like
Giger and his team did for the original Alien back in 1979.
But amidst all the exciting sci-fi horror action, Aliens also
boasts a strong emotional core thanks to, of course, Sigourney Weaver in the
lead role of Ripley. This is, after all, the film where Weaver made history by being
the first-ever lead star of a science-fiction film to earn a Best Actress
nomination at that year’s Oscars. Not only does Weaver naturally evolve the
character from being the first film’s final girl to the franchise’s badass
action heroine, but she also imbues Ripley with a wonderfully powerful motherly
persona thanks to the touching bond that she forms with Newt (Carrie Henn), the
sole survivor of the LV-426 colony. This development is even more relevant when
watching the extended cut, which includes a scene where Ripley tragically
learns that her daughter Amanda died in-between the events of the first two
films; a scene that Weaver was particularly incensed about being removed from
the theatrical cut. They’re then joined by a terrific supporting cast that
includes, among others, plenty of Cameron regulars such as Michael Biehn as
Hicks, the most level-headed of the Colonial Marines with a good onscreen
rapport with Weaver, Lance Henriksen as Bishop, a far more good-natured android
than Ian Holm’s Ash was in the first film, and Bill Paxton as Hudson, a cocky
Colonial Marine who’s the primary source of comic relief, especially once he realizes
how out of his depth he is once the situation on LV-426 goes awry. With all
this in mind, it’s easy to see why Aliens is not only regarded as one of
the best sequels of all time but also one of the best films to come out of both
the science fiction and horror film genres. Under James Cameron’s deft
direction, the film effectively balances its franchise’s superb horror aesthetic
with Cameron’s masterfully crafted action set-pieces, all while being bolstered
by a top-notch cast of well-written characters who bring life to a world full
of terrifying acid-blooded aliens. And as a result, the film more than holds
its own alongside the Ridley Scott-directed masterpiece that came before it as one
of the best installments of one of cinema’s most well-known and long-running
horror franchises.
Rating: 5/5!
THE ABYSS (1989)
While science fiction may be the genre that James Cameron is
best known for as a director, he has also been well known for his deep
connection to the ocean, particularly by way of his extensive experience in the
art of deep-sea diving. Not only has he participated in several significant
(and sometimes record-breaking) dives over the years, but the vast and untamed
world of the ocean depths has played a huge role in some of his films,
including Titanic and Avatar: The Way of Water. But when it comes
to the first real ocean-set film of his career (that is, if you don’t count Pirahna
II, which I’m sure Cameron would prefer), that honor goes to his 1989 film The
Abyss. Based on a story concept that Cameron had come up with when he was
in high school after attending a seminar on deep-sea breathing techniques, the
film follows the crew of a submersible oil drilling platform as they’re
recruited by the U.S. Navy to assist a team of SEALs in the process of
salvaging a nuclear submarine that has sunk in the Caribbean. Finding
themselves in a race against time to recover the sub before Russian forces can
get to it and instigate an international incident that could potentially
kickstart World War III, they soon discover a mysterious yet fascinating sight
of extraterrestrial origin. Production, to be perfectly blunt, was not a smooth
one when it came to this film. Given the extensively complicated nature of creating
the film’s underwater sequences, it goes without saying that the cast and crew
found themselves pushed to the limit during a shoot that lasted around half a
year. Lead actor Ed Harris reportedly punched Cameron after one scene nearly
resulted in him drowning and lead actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio stormed
off set while filming the sequence where her character drowns and is brought
back to life after numerous takes wasted the production’s film stock.
In some ways, you could say that the negative publicity of
the film’s production troubles (which were even referenced in its original
theatrical trailer) might have ended up affecting its commercial performance as
well; while it did make its $43 million+ budget back, it only made about $90
million worldwide, resulting in it being seen as the rare commercial dud of
Cameron’s career. Critically, though, the film proved to be yet another success
for him and became his second straight film to win the Oscar for Best Visual
Effects. However, upon its release, it was soon made clear that the theatrical
cut was, technically, an incomplete version of what Cameron set out to make.
Due to a combination of a lack of time to finish specific visual effects and
pressure from the studio to not have a runtime of nearly three hours (which is
an incredibly ironic notion nowadays (especially given the length of future
James Cameron films)), Cameron cut out a pivotal sequence from the film’s
finale in which a bunch of giant waves are unleashed upon the world. But then,
a few years later after Cameron scored his biggest hit yet with Terminator 2,
his studio, Lightstorm Entertainment, secured a lucrative deal with The
Abyss’ distributor, 20th Century Fox, which, along with the
funds for any future films of Cameron’s, included enough money to complete the
climactic wave sequence. And so, in 1993, The Abyss’ ‘Special Edition’
was officially released which, along with the wave sequence, also included some
other sequences that were taken out of the theatrical cut such as a few notable
bits of character development and sequences that emphasized the part of the
plot where the events of the film are tied around the threat of nuclear war,
which was downplayed in the theatrical cut.
But whatever version of the film you end up watching, you’ll
ultimately find yourself with a highly engrossing sci-fi thriller. Even with
the Special Edition’s near three-hour runtime, there’s never a dull moment in
this film as it does an excellent job of creating a suspenseful mystery plot,
especially when it comes to how it expertly builds up the slow but gradual
reveal of the alien creatures that the characters come across. Add in a great
use of the narrowly confined setting of the oil crew’s underwater rig, which
spends much of the film stuck thousands of feet underwater due to extensive hurricane
damage, and you have a film that successfully crafts a real harrowing
atmosphere amidst all its moments of pure spectacle. And on that note, as you undoubtedly
guessed from earlier when I mentioned that this film won the Oscar for Best
Visual Effects, it goes without saying that the biggest selling point of this
film is its visual effects thanks in large part to the one and only ILM.
Whether it’s the well-crafted underwater sequences or the various CGI effects
that, for the most part, have aged relatively well, this film’s visual game
still holds up immensely well even after three and a half decades. Casting-wise,
Cameron doesn’t rely on a cast of big-name stars, but this allows for this film’s
ensemble to have some phenomenal on-screen camaraderie. Ed Harris and Mary
Elizabeth Mastrantonio headline the film excellently as team leader Virgil
‘Bud’ Brigman and his estranged wife Lindsay while Michael Biehn gets to play
against type for his third major role in a James Cameron film as Lt. Coffey,
the leader of the SEAL team who starts to go insane as his ulterior motives begin
to threaten the whole operation.
The Abyss is the only film of James Cameron’s
post-1984 career that I’d never seen at the time that I started to write this,
namely due to a reason that will be blatantly obvious to anyone familiar
with this film and its post-theatrical release life. For the longest time, this
and another James Cameron film, True Lies, went several years without
any sort of home media release after they were released on DVD. Thus, when
those DVDs of theirs eventually went out of print, the only legally viable way
to watch either of these films was whenever they randomly popped up on premium
cable networks. In the case of The Abyss, I did attempt to watch it a
few times over the years, but I’ll fully admit that I never ended up getting
too far into it whenever I recorded it; by comparison, True Lies tended
to pop up a lot more often and, thus, was the one that I got around to watching
first. Thankfully, though, this year finally saw both films get their first
proper home media release in decades, which is fitting seeing how this happens
to be an anniversary year for them both (The Abyss’ 35th and True
Lies’ 30th). And in the case of the former, this will hopefully
result in newer audiences finally getting a chance to experience what is easily
shaping up to be James Cameron’s most underrated film to date as this highly
engrossing and visually spectacular deep ocean adventure is yet another showcase
of his unparalleled technical mastery.
Rating: 5/5!
TERMINATOR 2:
JUDGMENT DAY (1991)
As successful as the original Terminator was, the
idea of a potential follow-up wasn’t an immediate guarantee at the time due to
Cameron’s commitment to other projects and, perhaps more importantly, the
significant creative conflicts that he had with the studio that largely financed
the film, Hemdale. Said conflict ultimately came to a head when studio chairman
John Daly attempted to cut out the final section of the film where Sarah Connor
and Kyle Reese are being chased by the Terminator’s robotic endoskeleton and he
and Cameron nearly got into a physical fight over it as a result. To make
matters worse for Cameron, he had been forced to relinquish half of his rights
on the project to Hemdale just to get it made and had then sold half of what he
had left to Gale Anne Hurd when the two divorced in 1989. But, by the following
year, she and Cameron, along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stan Winston, sued
Hemdale over unpaid profits, which was just one of the many lawsuits that the
studio was tied up in at the time that would eventually lead to them filing for
bankruptcy and officially shutting down in 1995. During this time,
Schwarzenegger came up with a solution to his and Cameron’s problem by suggesting
that the rights be picked up by another studio, Carolco Pictures, who he had
just worked with on the 1990 Paul Verhoeven feature Total Recall.
Carolco promptly did just that with an expensive $17 million deal… which then meant
that Cameron had to be fully locked in for a sequel that he only had a few
months to develop. He ultimately did so along with his longtime friend and
collaborator William Wisher, his credited co-writer, and the result is a film
that is not only considered to be just as great as its highly acclaimed
predecessor but, in the eyes of many, was arguably even better by comparison: Terminator
2: Judgment Day.
Set 11 years after the events of the previous film, Judgment
Day sees the Connor family once again targeted by the sentient A.I. program
of the post-apocalyptic future, Skynet. But instead of having a Terminator sent
back in time to kill Sarah Connor before she can give birth to her son John,
this time Skynet sends a more advanced model, the shape-shifting liquid metal-based
T-1000, to kill the now 10-year-old John. Fortunately for him, his future self
once again sends a lone warrior back in time to protect him; it’s just that,
this time, it just so happens to be a reprogrammed T-800 AKA the same kind of
Terminator that went after his mom a decade prior. As I’ve repeatedly alluded
to throughout today’s post, Terminator 2 took a much different kind of
narrative approach compared to the original. Whereas the first Terminator
was a low-budget sci-fi flick that crafted a noir-style atmosphere to go along
with its horror-inspired premise… Terminator 2 boasted the largest
budget of any film ever made at the time (which, by the way, was a record that
James Cameron would then proceed to break twice more over the
decade) and, thus, is a grand-scaled action extravaganza. Simply put, this
film’s action sequences are second-to-none and they’re bolstered by, as to be
expected from a James Cameron film, top-notch visual effects work. This time
around, Cameron combined the two powerhouse forces that won his last two films
the Best Visual Effects Oscars; Stan Winston with the robot prosthetics and
animatronics and Dennis Muren and company over at ILM for the CGI effects such
as the groundbreaking visual effects work to bring the T-1000’s shape-shifting
abilities to life. With an all-star team like that, it’s not surprising to see
that Terminator 2 became the third straight film of James Cameron’s
career to nab the Best Visual Effects Oscar at that year’s ceremony.
But as great as both the film’s visual effects and action
sequences are, this is then matched by a top-notch script as Cameron and Wisher
do a fantastic job at crafting a natural follow-up to the first film full of
phenomenal character beats that define the main protagonists’ character arcs.
Linda Hamilton returns once again as Sarah Connor who, while far more
battle-ready than she was in the previous film, is also now heavily traumatized
by what she went through and for being cursed with the haunting knowledge of
the dark future ahead; one can only imagine how this is then all complicated
even further when she learns that she’s working alongside the same kind of
unstoppable killing machine that once tried to kill her. But as for the
Terminator, the first film’s main antagonist becomes this film’s greatest hero
as an emotionless cyborg gradually gains a greater appreciation for humanity
through his interactions with John Connor, for whom he becomes a surrogate
father figure to. John makes his first appearance in the franchise here, played
by Edward Furlong, who starts out as a cynical troublemaker but is soon forced
to grow up faster than anticipated once he’s put through the same harrowing
scenario his mother went through by being pursued by an even scarier antagonist
in Robert Patrick’s cold and ruthless T-1000. Heck, even supporting players get
some solid character moments like Joe Morton as Miles Dyson, an engineer at
Cyberdyne who’s revealed to be the one who will be the primary catalyst behind
the creation of Skynet but, once he learns what will happen, nobly steps up to
the point of sacrificing himself to ensure that the group’s efforts to stop
Judgment Day are successful.
In short, while I’m usually not one to be overly critical of
blockbuster-type films for not being the most well-written or ‘smartest’ films
ever made, I will concede that Terminator 2: Judgment Day is easily one
of the best examples of a blockbuster that, above all else, ensures that its story
and character beats are just as well-developed as its visuals and action
sequences. Thus, just like what Cameron managed to accomplish with Aliens,
Terminator 2 more than holds its own when compared to the first film… and
is why many have argued that this is where the series ultimately peaked in
terms of quality. Terminator 2 was the last film in the series to be
directed by Cameron himself (not counting the 1996 Universal theme parks
spin-off Terminator 2 3-D: Battle Across Time), and while the series
would continue without him, it’s never managed to achieve the same level of
success that it had with Judgment Day. The reasons why have largely varied
from film to film, whether it was 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’
efforts to undo the optimistic ending of the previous film so that it could continue
the story, 2009’s Terminator Salvation toning its action down to achieve
a more marketable PG-13 rating, or… basically any major creative decision made on
2015’s Terminator: Genisys. Cameron did finally return to the series in
2019 by writing/producing Terminator: Dark Fate, but even that film
couldn’t revitalize the franchise regardless of its efforts to return to its
narrative roots. But regardless of where you stand on the Terminator franchise
(case in point, yours truly has gone on record in the past admitting that he has
liked some of the later Terminator films), it’s practically impossible
to deny that Terminator 2: Judgment Day still stands as being nothing
short of a masterpiece.
Rating: 5/5!
TRUE LIES (1994)
With a second masterpiece from the Terminator franchise
under their belts, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger would team up once
more (literally, in fact, because this is the most recent film that they’ve
made together) on a project that would end up being considerably different than
the films that made them both household names. Sure, it’s still the kind of
big-budget action extravaganza (the first to have a budget of at least $100
million (though it should be noted that Terminator 2’s budget has
sometimes been reported as having been over that threshold as well)) that we’ve
come to expect from this dynamic filmmaking duo… but I bet that no one would’ve
expected them to do, of all things, a remake of a French action comedy. Yes,
1994’s True Lies is one of the rare instances of a Cameron film that
wasn’t based on an original story of his; instead, it’s a remake of a 1991
French film named La Totale!. Like that film’s plot, True Lies follows
a man named Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) who’s an elite secret agent for a
highly classified counterterrorist agency known as Omega Sector. It’s a
profession that he’s kept secret for many years from his wife Helen (Jamie Lee
Curtis) and their daughter Dana (Eliza Dushku), who believe him to be nothing
more than a boring computer salesman. However, in his efforts to track down a
terrorist group known as the Crimson Jihad, Harry soon finds himself having to
balance his work life with his personal life when Helen [somewhat inadvertently]
gets caught up in his daily proceedings. Upon its release, the film was both a
solid critical and commercial success, ultimately earning over $378 million
worldwide. And while, as I noted earlier when talking about The Abyss, both
that film and True Lies spent several years without a proper home media
release, True Lies did tend to be the more widely seen of the two because
it popped up far more often on premium movie channels like HBO, Showtime, and
Starz.
As a result, while it may be one of the lower-rated films of
James Cameron’s career amongst critics, True Lies does seem to be well-regarded
by many as another great addition to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s extensive resume
of classic action flicks. Sure enough, True Lies delivers on being just
that and then some when it comes to its action sequences. Cameron’s mastery of
the visual medium is arguably the finest that it’s ever been up to that point with
plenty of great action set-pieces that effectively mix practical stunt work
with some solid visual effects work by his then-newly established visual effects
studio Digital Domain, which didn’t keep Cameron’s Visual Effects Oscar win
streak going that year (they lost to Forrest Gump) but still got nominated,
nevertheless. But as we’ve noted, True Lies is also a comedic action
thriller and Cameron handles the comedic aspects of the script quite well,
undoubtedly helped by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s well-established action star
persona as an unparalleled gold mine for great comedic quips. This also extends
nicely to how Cameron unabashedly ups the ante when it comes to how utterly
over the top this film’s action sequences can get. In other words, this all starts
out relatively tame enough with an espionage sequence that feels like it was
ripped straight out of a James Bond film… and then concludes with a
scene where Harry Tasker pilots a Harrier Jet and kills the main antagonist by getting
him caught on a missile that he then proceeds to fire at an enemy helicopter,
all while delivering a classic Arnold one-liner, “You’re fired!”. On paper,
that all sounds like one of the most insane things that I’ve ever typed… but
thanks to Cameron’s strong direction, you’re fully hooked by this film’s
gleefully chaotic nature.
But while True Lies more than succeeds with its
action sequences and its sense of humor, there are, admittedly, a few parts of
it that have aged considerably. For starters, being that this is a 90’s film,
it goes without saying that its portrayal of its Middle Eastern villains now
comes off as incredibly stereotypical to the point of being quite arguably culturally
offensive. It may also help to explain why the 9/11 attacks have largely been
cited as the reason why Cameron and Schwarzenegger never got around to making a
sequel. But perhaps the most talked about ‘dated’ aspect of this film is that
many have argued that it sports something that you wouldn’t normally see in a
James Cameron film; a noticeable misogynistic streak. This mainly comes into
play by way of the film’s primary subplot in which Harry starts to suspect that
Helen is having an affair with a sleazy car salesman named Simon (Bill Paxton).
His subsequent efforts to investigate this to the point of using his agency’s
own resources to ‘capture’ her and forcefully coerce her into partaking in a staged
‘secret mission’ have been criticized by many as being excessively cruel. And
to be fair, it doesn’t help that this whole sequence ends up overtaking the plot
for nearly an hour to the point where main antagonist Aziz (Art Malik) and the
Crimson Jihad are absent from the film for the entirety of that stretch of
runtime. But if there’s any sort of silver lining to this, it’s that Jamie Lee
Curtis, despite everything that Helen is put through in the film, does own her
role. And as much as the film’s humor with Helen revolves around how utterly
out of her element she is in the world of espionage, it is nice that, by the
end, she becomes a spy just like her husband. In other words, while it may be
Arnold’s name at the top of the marquee, this film quite arguably belongs to
Jamie Lee Curtis, who deservedly won a Golden Globe that year.
In general, the film sports the usual strong ensemble for a
James Cameron film. Arnold is, of course, the same great Arnold that he always
was at the time, Bill Paxton is, as usual, a prime source of comic relief as
the scummy con-man Simon; heck, even Tom Arnold, the notoriously polarizing
comedian that he is, is an excellent foil to Schwarzenegger as Harry’s field
partner Gib. And because of all this, True Lies still stands as a highly
entertaining piece of cinematic bombast. Does that mean that it’s as much of a
masterpiece as James Cameron’s other films? No, not really since its outdated global
and gender politics does make it one of the prime examples of a film that you
just can’t make today in the current landscape of the film industry. But
without ignoring the more problematic aspects of its plot, there’s still a lot to
love about this film, such as how it unapologetically presents some of the most
delightfully ludicrous action sequences that have ever come out of a film from
this era. Case in point, I’ve often seen a bunch of people refer to True
Lies as the film that served as the peak for the kind of over-the-top action
films that thoroughly defined the careers of stars like Bruce Willis, Sylvester
Stallone, and, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger. And simply put, it’s easy to
see where they’re coming from when it comes to how one could potentially
describe this film. You take arguably the most popular action star of the '80s
and 90’s and pair him up with one of the best action directors in the industry
to make the kind of film that the former is best known for (rather than the latter’s
usual sci-fi-oriented fare) and you have a film that can best be described as ‘peak
Schwarzenegger’.
Rating: 5/5!
This concludes today’s
installment of Rhode Island Movie Corner’s Directorial Retrospective series
on the films directed by James Cameron. As I noted in the intro, I decided to
split this retrospective up into multiple parts simply because I figured that
it’d be more appropriate to give his last three films their own full-length
reviews given how significant they are within the pop cultural zeitgeist. With
that in mind, the next time we return to talk about James Cameron films, we’ll
be looking at the film that made him ‘the king of the world’, 1997’s Titanic.
So, until then… well, I’ll let Arnold say it for me 😉…
