| November 4, 2001 Movie Review: The Terminator and T2
(weblog entry)
And so we come to the end of another action movie festival chez
Susie and Marty, with a viewing of James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Here's a
report.
 The basic premise of The
Terminator is that machines have taken over the world in the near future (2029), and
the last remaining humans are fighting for their lives. The future is a nuclear wasteland
of rubble and darkness, with huge killer machines running rampant over everything. One man
-- John Connor -- leads the human resistance. In a move of great strategic thinking, the
machines decide to send a cyborg killing machine -- a terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
-- back in time to 1984 LA to kill John Connor's mother before John is ever born. Sarah
Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, is clueless about the future, of course, and when the
terminator arrives to hunt her down, her life is turned upside down as she runs from it
and fights it throughout the movie. To even the playing field a little, John Connor (her
son) sends back a soldier from the future as well -- to protect his mother from the
terminator. This guy, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), ends up being John Connor's father.
(Time travel is just a convenient plot device in these movies. They don't worry too much
about brain-twisting paradoxes like on Star Trek.)
A terminator is hard to kill. Almost impossible to kill.
And when you think it's dead, it almost never, ever is. And it's a machine, so it never
gives up. It will keep going, and going, and going until it reaches its goal, like an
Energizer Bunny with evil intent. This simple premise is surprisingly effective. It's
scary and personal, and provides lots of opportunity for fight scenes, chase scenes,
shoot-'em-up scenes... opportunities which director James Cameron takes advantage of very
effectively. At the end of the first film, the terminator is finally crushed in a
hydraulic press, and Kyle dies to save Sarah, and so she is left to ride into the sunset
with her unborn son and the knowledge that she must raise the child to be a warrior in the
future.
 In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), John Connor
is now a young teenager, and another terminator is sent back in time to target him and his
mother. This one is even more advanced, made of liquid metal (special effects had advanced
quite a lot from 1984 to 1991), and is played by Robert Patrick with great effect. The
adult John Connor has once again sent back a protector to help combat the terminator, and
here's the twist -- he sends a reprogrammed terminator to help her, played by Arnold
Schwarzenegger. The new (evil) terminator is a more advanced model (T1000) than Arnold's
terminator (T800), and it's even harder to stop.
Both movies are very good, if you like scary, violent
action movies. (I sometimes do.) Despite being filmed in 1984, with primitive special
effects by today's standards, The Terminator stands the test of time. It feels much less
dated than Batman,
which was made five years later.
Linda Hamilton is great in both these movies. Her
progression from a scared waitress in the first movie to a badass paramilitary
revolutionary in the second movie is surprisingly believable. She spends the first part of
T2 in a mental institution, and throughout the whole movie there's a dangerous edge to her
character that reminds the viewer that she may be right about the future, but she's
still more than a little crazy. But who wouldn't be? To be snatched from her safe and
comfortable life by a killer machine from the future, to have a child fathered by a
soldier from the future, and then to train the kid to be a military leader so he could go
forward and send his father back in time so he could be conceived? It's heavy.
It's interesting to see how differently Arnold
Schwarzenegger is presented in the two movies. In 1984, when The Terminator was made, he
was a relative newcomer to movies (his previous big hit was Conan the Barbarian). The Terminator was the
movie that made him synonymous with the action genre. His portrayal of the terminator in
the first film is perfect, and the perfect role for him. As a single-minded killing
machine, he kills people, many people, in direct and creative ways. And sometimes he just
uses big guns to kill a whole bunch of people at once. But he's cold, and inhuman, and
impersonal. You can almost believe he's a machine.
Seven years later, when T2 was released, Ah-nold had
cemented his image as an action movie star with movies like Predator and Total Recall. But by that time he'd also
appeared in the comedies Kindergarten Cop
and Twins, two movies that gave him a
chance to show a softer, more comedic side to his acting. I think casting Schwarzenegger
as the "good" terminator in T2 was a stroke of genius. He's still playing a
machine, of course, which does not require a particularly taxing emotional range, but now
his character embodies humor and nobility as well as the obvious action-movie virtues
("good with a gun"). His interaction with John Connor (the kid) is played up a
lot, with the kid making the terminator swear not to kill anyone -- and the terminator
complying, for the entire movie. You can see how the progress of Schwarzenegger's career
shaped the role, to some extent.
One thing I really like about the terminators is that they do
seem like machines. Even in T2, when Arnold isn't killing (only maiming), the machine
always sees the quickest and most direct way to accomplish a goal. Unlike humans, who look
for the on-ramp or wait for the elevator, the terminators save a lot of time by crashing
through walls instead of looking for doors, riding motorcycles upstairs in buildings to
save time on the elevators, and driving trucks off of overpass bridges to get on different
highways. The terminators go for the straight line, the fastest route between A and B.
They really think outside the box.
Director James Cameron is no big favorite of mine -- I
absolutely hated the movie True Lies, and I
refuse to see Titanic -- but the Terminator
movies are really something special. My final verdict: I like both The Terminator and T2,
but I definitely prefer T2. Both of them are violent movies, and scary too, but to me the
second one is more complex, in a good way. Plus, Linda Hamilton's hot. And I like
watching Arnold playing that role. I know some of his lines are just gimmes, but they're so
quotable. Besides "Hasta la vista, baby," there's "I'll be back"
(again), and "No problemo." Can I help it if I'm easily amused? |
