arnold schwarzenegger – filmcentric

Another attempt to kick-start a veteran science-fiction franchise, this fifth Terminator film harks back to the first one, even repurposing footage from it to create an inter-generational fight scene, which is pretty much the best thing on offer here. That said, I find it difficult to write the whole thing off as awful, because despite a general lack of inspiration—bolstered by a largely vacuous young cast (Jason Clarke’s John Connor at least carries the wounds of war, but nobody really convinces as a battle-hardened veteran)—it never actively offended me, and even offered a fairly entertaining two hours. Sadly, the script is largely at fault, with characters being forced to spend large chunks of screen time explaining the convoluted time travel premise, which involves multiple timelines and allows Kyle (Jai Courtney) to retain memories from the other timeline. At least… I think? It’s hard to really be sure. The big (non-spoilery) twist is that Emilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor now takes the lead in her relationship with Kyle (thanks to tutelage from a second Terminator/Arnie). Beyond that, the film constantly references plot points and memorable images from the first couple of films, suggesting that were it not for the messy time travel narrative, it could have just been a simple reboot of the stripped-down original, and perhaps that would have been better.

CREDITS
Director Alan Taylor; Writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier; Cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau; Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney; Length 126 minutes. Seen at Cineworld Chelsea [2D], London, Wednesday 8 July 2015.

Re-released to cinemas in time for Terminator Genisys‘s upcoming return to the same events, it’s easy to think of this as an Arnie film, or as a James Cameron film—and it is those things (certainly it cemented Schwarzenegger’s stardom, and was Cameron’s breakthrough)—but it’s also a film that centres on Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor, as well as being a film co-written by a woman (its producer and Cameron’s wife for the next five years, Gale Anne Hurd). In fact, I’d go so far as to suggest that Arnie’s eponymous character is somewhat peripheral, like a lurking terror, leaving us with a story of two people (Connor and Michael Biehn’s military man Kyle) in a twisted time travel narrative that owes perhaps a little to the modernist Chris Marker short film La Jetée. However, far more than any of those things it’s a schlocky exploitation flick, very much in the Roger Corman mould (one of his favourite actors, Dick Miller, even shows up as a gun shop clerk), a refinement of the kind of things that Cannon Films was putting out during this era. The film’s best lines carry an unmistakable ring of campiness (those bouffant 80s hairstyles certainly help), and Arnie’s iconic “I’ll be back” gets a little cheer from the audience I was watching with. It only occasionally overstretches in trying to find deeper meaning, but for the most part it stays on the right side of being a lean and pulpy action film, meaning that it’s aged perhaps a little better than some of its contemporaries.

CREDITS
Director James Cameron; Writers Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd; Cinematographer Adam Greenberg; Starring Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Arnold Schwarzenegger; Length 107 minutes. Seen at Prince Charles Cinema, London, Wednesday 24 June 2015 (and on VHS at home, Wellington, earlier in my life).