James
Cameron
Jimbo Ranked
The salient
sense one takes away from a revisit (or, in some less essential cases, first visit)
of James Cameron’s filmography is that less-is-more. Which isn’t only a
judgement on his predilection for overdoing every element, least flatteringly when
this exposes shortcomings in areas such as romance, philosophy and comedy, but
the cumulative fatigue of a body of work that isn’t an especially prolific, yet
rapidly becomes repetitive in its only-to-himself fascinations and shamelessly
cartoonish narratives and characters.
After a
while, Cameron’s great strengths (namely, as a master technician of action
cinema) begin to pale in the face of the more bare-faced general conceit of bringing
the auteur sensibility where it barely merits it. Under which guise he scribbles
increasingly rote, bloated screenplays, and is then thrown gazillions of
dollars to make them.
So here is
Jim Cameron ranked, on the basis of writing and/or directing gigs. I don’t
think I could face producing credits as well. And admission time; if you’d
asked me at the end of the ‘80s who my favourite filmmaker was, I’d have
probably plumped for old Jimbo.
17. Piranha
II: The Spawning
(1981)
Cameron
likes to distance himself from this, his first movie, which is understandable
enough since he was unceremoniously dumped off it and it turned out fairly wretched, all told. Piranha II isn’t even close to one of the worst ten movies ever
made, as some lists would have it, however. Conversely, The Spawning (or The Flying
Killers, which is more ludicrously fitting) only occasionally crosses into
“So bad, its good” territory, mostly when the flying fishies begin feasting on
someone, which entails leaping through the air and attaching themselves to a victim’s
neck, amid jets of the old red stuff.
Setting the
store for Jimbo’s future career, the underwater photography is accomplished, while
the attempts at comedy are risible. There’s also a headstrong female
protagonist (Tricia O’Neil) who pays little heed to collateral damage (not
quite the T2 Sarah Connor, but from
tiny acorns). The highlight is Lance Henriksen’s waterlogged police chief, the
actor bringing effortless cool to a rare hero part (albeit one where he’s
required to behave like an idiot for a spell so his missus can do the detective
work).
16. Rambo:
First Blood Part II
(1985)
“To survive a war, you gotta become war.”
Cameron’s dry run for Aliens, with a
jaded hero forced out of retirement to revisit the scene of an old crime and
confront his nightmares. And, like Piranha
II, this is another picture he’s prone to distance himself from. In this
case, it’s the claim that Stallone rewrote the politics, while the action is
his. But come on, Jimbo, you came up
with Rambo returning to Nam, and you
came up with the gooks teaming up with the infernal Russkies. And you had Stallone taking them all
out.
I’m still bemused
this was as successful as it was, as even asserting audiences loved it through
ironic detachment doesn’t tell the full story (movies just don’t become that big a success for such reasons, except in the
minds of critics). First Blood Part II
was evidently wielding some serious cathartic weight. That, and Stallone’s ridiculous
new body encapsulated the vacuous, superficial ideals of a decade when materialism
became a badge of pride rather than something to feel apologetic about.
The main
problem with Rambo isn’t those
elements, however. It’s that it’s incredibly dull, aside from some stunning
scenery chewing courtesy of Steven Berkoff, and has zero dramatic tension; as
an action movie, it’s inert. While the blame for such should rightfully be placed
at the door of George P Cosmatos, we should also be grateful Stallone excised a
typically extravagant, action-free introductory passage from Jim’s screenplay.
15. Ghosts
of the Abyss
(2003)
Cameron
attempts to show he’s an all-rounder, plunging into the different skillset of documentary
making. I’m sure he thought it would be as easy as piddle to make, but his epic
romance between Kate and Leo ends up more informative (and engaging!) than this
revisit to the wreck of the biggest ship of its day. Poor Bill Paxton comes along
for the ride, and is subjected to crude comedy sequences and an enormous
upchuck for his sins. Which is nice
(mind you, some would say his role in Titanic
wasn’t altogether dissimilar). There’s some fetching underwater photography,
naturally, but it hardly justifies the time and indulgence surrounding it.
14. Terminator
2 3D: Battle Across Time
(1996)
Co-directed
with John Bruno, footage from this Universal Studio Park Terminator ride can be found on YouTube. It’s an exercise in
shameless convenience and moneymaking, the filmed part mostly devoid of
anything you haven’t already seen, aside from Arnie riding around a 2029
future.
Apparently the
attraction cost $60m, of which the filmed section, which lasts 12 minutes, came
in at $24m. As you’d expect, the result is entirely ungainly, haltingly
assembled in order to shoehorn in the necessary action, interaction and
spectacle. Sarah and John Connor (Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong reprising
their roles, or their live stage doubles), interrupt a Cyberdyne systems
demonstration, and are attacked by a T-1000 (Robert Patrick, or his stage
double) before being rescued by a T-800 (Arnie, or his stage double), on a
motorbike (I’m sure that had a stage double too). Who takes John back to the future
(Why? I’m blowed if I know), where they become embroiled in some futuristic
robotic shit and Arnie takes down Skynet. And dies. Again.
Some will
have it that this is the Terminator sequel
that should have been. The nature of the beast makes it rather difficult to be
definite about its potential, but I’d suggest there isn’t anything remotely
interesting enough in the premise to justify a T3, or T2.5 (not that
it’s necessarily inferior to what follows), which is basically a string of
greatest hits moments and the chance to show a sliver more future. Arnie says “I’ll be back”, but also delivers some entirely
incongruous one-liners (“Hey, bucket
head!”, “He was my college roommate”,
of a Terminator he destroys, and “Let’s
bust a move” as they advance on Skynet). The scenes are well-shot, but they
aren’t inspired.
More
interesting, in a kind of sub-Verhoeven sense, are the Cyberdyne puff pieces prefacing
the main event. They illustrate, lest there be any doubt, that humour and
subtlety aren’t Cameron’s forte (he co-wrote with Gary Goddard and Adam J
Bezark) since the satire is more statement than wit (“Feel safe, feel secure, we’re watching”, and “Skynet will search out hosts on the internet and install itself free of
charge”). Nevertheless, it does quite accurately pre-empt the wholesale,
ambivalent manner by which we have surrendered our privacy to surveillance
technology. Skynet, “where happiness is
not only mandatory, it’s policy”, connects the world as never before, and “Soon we can all sleep soundly, knowing
Cyberdyne is running the show”. Host Kimberly Duncan is appallingly
aggravating, such that I’m surprised visitors didn’t walk out; maybe I saw the
solitary show where no one cheered when she was killed by the T-1000.
13. Aliens
of the Deep
(2005)
Jimbo’s
final documentary to date sees him aim higher and fall lower, as he shows off
for all to see his lack of rigour when it comes to making a robust piece of speculative
science. He’s far more invested in how awesome the undersea creatures and
landscape are than plying us with interesting information about the same, and
also far too enamoured with the pretty marine biologist he pores over in every
other shot. And yet, despite of the meagre pickings, even less elucidating when
it comes to projecting a similar voyage of discovery to Europa, there is some quite
stunning (even more so than Ghosts) photography
here. It’s just that you have to wade through all the junk to get to it.
12. Expedition: Bismarck
(2002)
Ironically,
given it’s a TV affair, and awash with cheesy moments and choices, this is the superior
of the three Cameron documentaries to date. Mostly because it actually has a
kernel of narrative to get its teeth into, and a trajectory of inquiry. True,
there’s far too much in the way of poor reconstructions and un-special effects,
and its director couldn’t be more at home than when attending the wreck of a once
destruction-wielding marvel, but piecing together the opposing takes on what
took the ship down (the British Navy or German scuttlers) is the sort of thing
that justifies Cameron’s inadvisable pleasure jaunt.
11. Dark
Angel
2.21: Freak
Nation (2002)
For an
introduction to Dark Angel, you might
first want to skip to No. 9 on this list. Cameron didn’t write Freak Nation (although he gets a story
credit), which makes it an anomaly on his directorial CV. He came on board the
Season 2 finale, in part to show Fox what might have been for a third season,
but it didn’t pay off and the network cancelled on him, soon after saying
they’d picked up it up for another run (“I was pissed!” – you go, Jimbo!)
Anyone hoping
for some spectacular sleights of hand will be sorely disappointed, however, as
Cameron sticks to the budget and delivers some reined in, static action, or
attempts to pull off feats that not only don’t quite work, they’re laughably
inept. When Max leaps onto a drone and uses it as a hover board, crashing it into
the Jam Pony Express office, you’re left longing for the vastly superior (only relatively)
flying sequences of Highlander II: The
Quickening.
The office,
a standard set for the show, is under siege, being as they’re occupied by a
number of transgenics, and obvious mutant ones at that (one’s the spit of a nu-Who Silurian, which means he looks very
much like your average ‘90s Star Trek
alien). The show appropriates the transgenics from X-Men, not the subtlest of movies in the first place, in a
blundering manner, with protesters exclaiming “These mutant freaks are an affront to nature!” while law
enforcement shows no compunction in taking them down.
Kevin
Durand, looking the spit of Vincent from the Linda Hamilton-starring Beauty and the Beast TV series, only
dopier and given to spouting a lot of hippy nonsense when describing his
paintings, fails to enliven the proceedings (which is unusual for him). Others are
given to meaningless pseudo-profound utterances such as “You gave them freedom, Max. And the thing about freedom is, it’s never
free”. And “We were made in America,
and we’re not going anywhere”.
Characters
fight against a soundtrack of rawk music, go back and forth about the evils of
humanity, and how everyone isn’t the same as everyone else, etc., and someone
even has to deliver a baby, in case you had any illusions this was other than overstretched
TV fare. There’s even a prophecy, so it’s likely the production crew saw some Millennium, or Buffy (“When the shroud of
death covers the face of the Earth, the one whose power is hidden will deliver
the helpless” – solid gold, that). Perhaps the most Jimbo moment comes at
the beginning, as Max comments contemptuously of some human protestors “Two million years of evolution, and this is
what we get – you morons!” Before pulling a wheelie and riding full pelt
towards them.
10. Xenogenesis
(1978)
More an
exercise in achieving and integrating special effects and design work on a
negligible budget (financed by some Californian dentists for a tax write-off,
it seems) than a short story of artistic merit in its own right, this
nevertheless gives a taster of the director’s abiding interests and obsessions
at an early stage. It was also a success in terms of its remit, as it got
Cameron’s foot in the door with Roger Corman.
A mash-up of
archaeology (Rak – William Wisher, co-writer of T2 – and Lon – Margaret Undiel – are searching for a place to begin
life anew for humanity) and machine intelligence, Xenogenesis sees two non-descript leads happening across a dead
planet in which robot war machines continue posting sentinel. Or acting as
cleaning units, at any rate. You can see the basis for Aliens’ power loader in the spiderbot, which moves in synch with
its human driver’s arms, leading to a rock ‘em, sock ‘em robot duel. The short
makes just enough sense to follow, and Cameron clearly loved designing his
sci-fi setting (the intro lasts a minute, showing off concept drawings), but it’s
the definition of style over substance. Xenogenesis
merits bonus points for being substantially shorter than anything else the
director has gone near, though.
9. Dark
Angel
Pilot (2000)
Cameron’s
tepid venture into series television landed softly via this 90-minute pilot.
Mogul-like, he handpicked and launched a major new “star” on the world in
Jessica Alba. She plays Max Guevara (yes, I know), Jimbo’s sci-fi equivalent of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer-by-way-of-anime-heroine,
an escaped (as a child), genetically-enhanced super soldier, cycle courier by
day and justice dealer the rest of the time, unfortunately prone to very TV-ish
one-off stories of the week, and superheroically, and pensively, standing on
rooftops (yes, she’s Batman).
He co-wrote
the teleplay with Charles H Eglee, an old associate from his winged piranha
excursion, and it’s easy to see this as Cameron’s comedown after allowing all
that pre-millennial tension to wash over him in Strange Days. The world having unfortunately survived, Jimbo wishes
it was all a bit simpler, and so delivers a simple-minded future in which
terrorists have rendered the US a third world country by setting off an EM
pulse (would that it were so simple). The result is a remarkably clean-and-tidy
Fox network-styled post-apocalypse, so comfortably fitting with Max’s
observation “The thing I don’t get is,
why they call it a depression. I mean, everybody’s broke, but they aren’t
really all that depressed”.
Jim’s
vision of America seized by financial dread might be seen as prescient, along
with his embrace of drone culture (the police have them hovering over every
street corner), but mostly it’s just plain derivative. I recall sticking with Dark Angel for about 8 or 9 episodes,
and all I took away was how run-of-the-mill everything was. David Nutter
directed the $10m pilot, then riding high from successful stints on The X-Files and Millennium, but he’s unable to offer much more than a professional
sheen.
The problem
with the show isn’t only how utterly generic it is, but also how without spark
the characters are. Alba pouts the way a girl must surely pout when she knows
she’ll never need botox, but isn’t much cop at anything else, including looking
like a kick-ass, and teams up with Michael Weatherly’s blandest-of-the-bland
love interests, rebel hacker and broadcaster Logan Hale (somehow he’s still
there at the end of the second season, despite possessing no charisma
whatsoever), while searching out her former fellow detainee transgenics. Think Mr Robot but with zero traction. This a future of supporting characters with
names like Original Cindy, Herbal Thought and Sketchy, where everyone sports designer
duds like the world never ended and they’re going to party all weekend. Or ‘til
dawn.
Cameron
commented, “If we can’t find an audience,
we deserve to be off the air. It’s that simple”. Prophetic words, as Dark Angel scraped a commission for a
second season (most probably Fox wanting to keep him nominally onside, but it was
relegated to Fridays and sunk like a stone). As such, none too dissimilar to
Spielberg’s habitually ill-fated forays into TV, where his name somehow got the
likes of Seaquest DSV recommissioned,
despite pervasive viewer apathy. Even Cameron’s staunchest adherents will
probably admit character depth isn’t his forte, so he was bound to come unstuck
unfurling paper-thin posturers on a weekly basis. The best you can say about Dark Angel is that it isn’t awful, the
worst that it’s completely forgettable.
8. True Lies
(1994)
Cameron
shouldn’t have needed telling he should steer well clear of comedy,
particularly comedy that takes in Middle Eastern terrorists and marital
infidelity. I’d like to think this was just
spectacularly misjudged, but Jimbo’s defence that the picture is “funny, funny, just funny” is about as
convincing as his divesting himself of the blame for Rambo II.
Arnie’s
Harry Tasker lies to wife Helen about what he does for their entire married
lives, then has the gall to act the jealous husband when she seeks a bit of unadventurous
adventure. Harry’s approach, like any good patriarch, is to kidnap,
interrogate, and then prostitute his dearly beloved. It’s a thoroughly
distasteful set-up and follow-through, all in the name of fun-ny, and that’s
before we get to Art Malik’s thoroughly evil Arab.
For a
Cameron film, perhaps most surprising is that the action never quite comes
together, or not as effectively as it had done in earlier outings, certainly. The
big climax involving a Harrier jump jet is annoyingly unconvincing, and
ill-served by “hilarious asides”. What comedy there is that works is entirely
down to the trio of Arnie (yes, really, he’s pretty good generally here, particularly
as the vengeful hubby), Tom Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis. If we have nothing
else to than Titanic for, it’s that
it surely put a dampener on Cameron pursuing a sequel.
7. Titanic
(1997)
I’m no
great fan of Titanic, so it’s
mid-ranking on this list evidences just how much sub-standard fare Jimbo has
tyrannised into existence. Once he left the ‘80s behind, and no one was left standing
to say no, or even offer sage advice, Cameron’s ego was on a fast track to
nowhere good, complete with a level of output that would make Kubrick think
twice (at least Kubrick made films of undoubted artistic merit, so those ever-longer
waits meant something).
Titanic is well made – I can’t fault the extended
sinking of the ship, which takes up an entire act and then some, just what goes
on between the characters during that time – and well performed by a couple of latterly
deserving Oscar winners (though maybe not for the performances they got the
statuettes for, but ‘twas ever thus), but the entire affair is so ridiculously
cornball, so faux-romantic (the way the film above Titanic on this list is faux-spiritual) and utterly cartoonish in
every element of escalating tragedy, that it’s difficult to digest how anyone
was buying into it for a second. The technical accomplishment is undeniable,
but one only has to compare the watery racing around the doomed ship here to
the claustrophobic stakes of the also watery The Abyss to see how one just isn’t succeeding dramatically. But… I
guess I must be wrong, because untold audiences were thoroughly beguiled and
moistened of the eyes.
6. Avatar
(2009)
In which
Jimbo saves the (a) planet by wreaking mass-destruction across its environs.
Way to go! The eco-message is so earnest, and thick-headed, it’s almost
endearing. But only almost. Avatar is
the ultimate example of emperor’s new clothes, perhaps, since he hoodwinked an
entire global audience that his immersive, CGI-heavy, 3D endeavour really was this amazing new thing (to the
extent there were actually complaints when it didn’t get a Best Picture Oscar
nomination), when really it was the old story of the white guy riding in and
showing the natives how it should be done, just with added blue cat people and
touchy-feely Gaia consciousness.
Cameron’s
idea of transcendence is head-butting the Dalai Lama and hoping something
transcendent rubs off. Hence this entire movie, where “Attack! Kill! Kill!” is
the rousing order of the day, with one-dimensional, hissable villains, and,
perversely, the kind of pixelated hardware climax you’d never have countenanced
from the guy who formerly relished the physicality of his challenges.
Will anyone
care about the sequels? I wouldn’t bet against them, despite there being no one
out there clamouring (audibly, anyway). It’s quite clear that, for better or
worse, people connected with Titanic
because the star-crossed lovers affected them. Can anyone say something similar
for Avatar, other than unmitigated advocates
of 3D technology? And we’re just now seeing a contemporary of Avatar, one buoyed to $1bn+ gross by 3D
conversion, spawning a sequel to fervent apathy, which might make Fox and its
blank cheque for fourquels a wee bit cautious.
5. Strange
Days
(1995)
Jim’s end
of the world angst manifests in typically unfinessed glory. Strange Days is a clumsy, hamstrung love
story elevated considerably (much like The
Abyss) by sterling performances from leads Angela Bassett (as his de
rigueur masculinised woman, as opposed to simply essaying a strong female
character) and Ralph Fiennes. The political commentary (LA Riots) feels like
the work of someone writing from a gated mansion, while the future tech is
suitably ingeniously grisly in places (jacking someone in to witness their own
death).
But the
whole thing suffers from being unhelpfully over-extended, lacking a
sufficiently engaging mystery plotline to supply balance. Kathryn Bigelow’s
direction is dependably faultless, but Strange
Days, which bowled me over when I first saw it, has aged poorly. It’s a
cute-grim cyberpunk vision of then a few years then hence, and has none of the
legs shown by the more philosophical and thoughtful Until the End of the World, which wafted in on the breeze a few
years prior.
4. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
(1991)
A sequel
too far for Cameron. Even amid the acclaim at the time, which I was swept along
with, I was aware of something slightly fatigued in the very existence of T2, but it was expertly disguised by the
glittering effects and hugely propellant, enormously explosive action
spectacle.
There’s something
to be said for turning Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor into a massive loon, but
reconfiguring the Terminator as a good guy isn’t really a great twist (something I was sure of from the first
announcement, and the finished movie did nothing to convince me otherwise);
it’s a neutering of the iconic menace, in reflection of Arnie’s now superstar
status.
And, while
Robert Patrick admittedly makes for a strikingly unstoppable replacement villain,
the real problem with T2 is that it
has insufficient reason to be. Cameron’s mostly just rehashing stuff, from
iconic scenes and phrases to the fostered family dynamic he developed for Aliens. There’s a lot of fun to be had
here, and there’s some incredible, heart-stopping action, but by the time Arnie
gives his smelted thumbs up I’ve had quite enough of Terminator retooled as syrupy confectionary.
3. The Abyss
(1989)
In Special
Edition form, the form Cameron attested he favoured least, as it detracted from
the picture’s heart, this is very nearly great. The Day the Earth Stood Still vision of a world brought low by its
premiere occupants, and the warning of global tsunamis poised to strike, packs
a punch, somewhat making up for the soggy melodramatics accompanying Bud
Brigman’s descent of the titular trench, as his ex-wife Lindsey serenades him
with a ridiculously over-indulgent monologue.
This is
Cameron evidencing he has little clue when it comes to exploring the hearts and
minds of his characters, and that, if he attempts to extend himself beyond the
two dimensional and acceptably caricatured, he leaves them stranded.
That said,
Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio turn in outstanding performances, the
central theme, as over-familiar as it is, carries resonance, and most of all
the technical achievement is absolutely phenomenal. See the Special Edition if
you see only one version, but be prepared to persevere through the decidedly
unhurried opening hour. When the action comes, in fits and spurts, it’s more
than first rate, and if the picture is unfortunate enough to have the least
distinctive supporting cast of any Cameron blockbuster (perhaps in the service
of notional realism), it boasts a highly entertaining bug-eyed turn from
Michael Biehn, embracing the chance to show he doesn’t just have it in him to
play goody-two-shows heroes.
2. Aliens
(1986)
Much
celebrated at the time, not least by me, time hasn’t been overly kind to Aliens. Its effects creak, it’s
hopelessly overlit, for a movie that supposed to be at least a wee bit scary,
and appearance-wise its cast are embedded every inch in the decade it was made.
Most damningly, or successfully, depending on where you’re coming from, Cameron
has taken the taut, palpable, low-key realism of Ridley Scott’s original, and
fashioned a live-action video game from the its principal monster while turning
its heroine into a gun-wielding she-Rambo.
The
air-punching “Get away from her, you
bitch!” was seventh in Empire’s recent 50 greatest sci-fi moments (the
chestburster rightly placed higher), but it very much identifies Aliens as pure comic book. Such a scene
would have been unthinkable in the original. Encountered on those terms, Alien 3 is very much a return to core
principals.
That said,
what Cameron does well, he does very well. The onslaught of marines versus
Vietnamese, Stormtroopers, I mean xenomorphs, is relentless and ratchets up the
tension. The supporting characters may all be 2D, but they’re all memorably so,
and performed with exemplary skill by a well-thumbed cast. And James Horner’s
score is dynamite. Like The Abyss, I
always go for the Special Edition, although the reasons in this case are less
convincing. This one does sustain the
prolonged build-up, though, because the anticipation of a rematch is
everything.
1. The
Terminator
(1984)
I don’t
think it’s a coincidence that Cameron’s best science fiction movie, and best
movie, is tonally closer to horror than science fiction. Where Aliens ultimately dissatisfies is that
it is, first-and-foremost, an action flick, forsaking the palpable, unearthly
dread that infests the original. Dread is Terminator’s
constant companion; inescapable, unstoppable, any moment of respite must be
held onto for dear life.
Without the
luxury of a preceding career pedigree, Jimbo’s required to deliver a movie free
from fat, and the result is a taut, relentless B-movie, one where the melodrama
is completely in keeping with the apocalyptic foreboding. This very much feels
like a picture staring into the (abyss) of nuclear Armageddon, whereas T2, for all the CG carnage of judgement
day, was never in much imminent danger, insulated behind an expensive sheen.
In a
parallel universe, such as the ones T5
plays with (poorly), Cameron might have continued on with such a honed approach,
rather than becoming ever-more bloated in manifesting ever-slenderer premises. Terminator may have the problems of your
typical time travel paradox tale in terms of narrative integrity, but that’s inarguably
the entire point, and more, it serves an emotional payload that doesn’t feel
faked, thanks to the committed performances of Biehn and Hamilton. Terminator started Cameron’s career in
earnest, and while the pinnacles of success have grown successively ever
higher, he’s never equalled the quality of his first classic movie.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.
Comments
Post a comment