Planet Terror (2007)

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Cast: Rose McGowan, Marley Shelton, Freddy Rodriguez, Michael Biehn

Have I Seen it Before: Now that is an interesting question. I missed the original Grindhouse double feature when it originally hit theaters. In the ensuing years, I definitely know I’ve watched Tarantino’s half of the project, Death Proof (2007), but as I watched the film unfurl this time, there were parts of it that struck vague memories, but other parts which I had both completely forgotten, and would have assumed I had remembered. So I can only offer a 75% certainty about any answer to that question.

Did I Like It: Not being all that certain that I’ve seen it before is probably a pretty thorough—if soft—indictment of the movie, but I also say that I had about as much fun as I possibly could at this point with what I was seeing.

I can’t watch the film without thinking that Dimension picked the wrong guy to direct the nearly concurrent remake of Halloween (2007). Here, Rodriguez has tapped in such subtle ways into the energy on display in Halloween II (1981), that I would have far preferred to see what he had to offer on Michael Myers. At first I thought I was imagining things, but when William (Josh Brolin) reaches to stab his wife, Dakota (Shelton) in the eye with a syringe, I became unassailably convinced that Rodriguez knew exactly from whom he was borrowing.

I was far more interested in those touches than I was in the larger subject matter, though. I’ve long since been fed up with the zombie genre on spec, that I could see past the inherent nihilism of the genre for any stretch of time is surely to Rodriguez’s credit. That I was able to have any amount of fun with the film when the imprimatur of the Weinsteins is all over it, and McGowan has since indicated that she was exploited by the filmmakers… well, that might say less about Rodriguez’s skills and more about my—admittedly not great—ability compartmentalize my experience with entertainment.

The Abyss (1989)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, Leo Burmester

Have I Seen it Before: Huh. Weird question. Maybe? I can’t imagine I spent all of this time avoiding the film, but I really don’t have much memory for it.

Did I Like It: And why is that? Under one possibility, over thirty-plus years the film on spec never ensnared enough of my imagination to finally make a point to watch it*. Or did I see it, and it just didn’t make enough of an impact to get into any kind of regular re-watch cycle.

While Cameron’s skill with pacing is unassailable, I think there might be two things holding him back here.

First, while I enjoy an Alan Silvestri score just as much as the next guy, he seems to be doing merely perfunctory work here. Or, at the very least, Cameron is more naturally in sync with someone like Brad Fiedel, James Horner, or someone who has worked very hard to bring a James Horner quality to a James Horner-less world.

Finally, the special effects age not so well. The floating column of water now looks like not much more than cheap CGI, because it is. I’m tempted to eschew that criticism as unfair. Judging an entire movie by the aging of its special effects is a great way to stop enjoying a lot of films, but it feels like the entirety of the movie is incidental to proving the concept of the CGI creature. It didn’t work unassailably well ten years later for George Lucas and Star Wars — Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).

*Although to be fair, Cameron is being unusually stingy with options to watch not only this, but most of his catalog. Whispers on the internet point to a 4K re-release being nigh, but there’s such a sellers market on physical media at the moment (derogatory), that I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Rock (1996)

Director: Michael Bay

Cast: Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris, Michael Biehn

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. It’s never been a very important movie in my pantheon.

Did I Like It: There’s always a hard, impenetrable crust of Michael Bayness to any Michael Bay film which make it hard to truly love. He—being the pinnacle of those music video crafters that ended up getting handed the keys to a feature film—can’t quite help himself. Every movie since Bad Boys (1995) always simmers at the wrong end of too-much, and the less said about his later Transformers sequels, the better off we all are.

But it isn’t like the film is unenjoyable, though. I’m struck here by the fact that, for all his failings, Bay has a willingness to cast good people. From John Spencer through Raymond Cruz, not fifteen minutes of the film goes by where I was not pleasantly surprised by a performer’s appearance which I had apparently forgotten since the last time I watched the film.

If you embrace the notion—I dare not say turn off your brain—that it is too much and ride the wave safely to shore, there are worse ways to spend a few hours, especially in those days before he became an action figure salesman*. He set out to make a big, dumb action movie, and that’s what we got…

But, if you take the film on the notion that one James Bond, 007 of MI6 is a codename which several individuals had filled over the years**, and that one of those men were named John Patrick Mason, then this film can transcend it’s dumb roots and become something quite special, indeed.

It does take some mental gymnastics to get there. Best you don’t turn your brain off for the movie.

*To be fair, plenty of very fine filmmakers ended up as action figure salesman. I’m looking in your direction, Mr. Lucas.

**A conclusion which that film series can somewhat support, if you ignore the fact that Lazenby, Moore, and Dalton’s version of the character all apparently were married to a woman named Teresa, now dead. It’s only really difficult to get over during the opening scene of For Your Eyes Only (1981). Ignore it and the Bond universe can become far richer, indeed.

The Terminator (1984)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul WInfield

Have I Seen it Before: I want to make some kind of joke about their being no fate but what we make

Did I Like It: Why don’t you make movies with real things and real people, James Cameron? Why?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. This film is perfectly cast. Before he became the most improbable quip-machine in history, Schwarzenegger brings all of his monosyllabic lethality to the role of a lifetime. Lance Henriksen wouldn’t have been the right choice—although he is good in the film, and does eventually reach his potential as a robot for James Cameron one day. OJ Simpson was in the running at one point, but everyone decided he wouldn’t be convincing as a killer. True story. Linda Hamilton plays the arc of the Final Girl’s transformation to Warrior Woman much more efficiently than her peers or successors. And then there’s Michael Biehn. Is there an American action star who is better to display constant patience with the events and people around him? That he hasn’t been a much bigger star over the years is completely beyond me.

But let’s really talk about how this film has no business working out at all.

This thing could have floated away in a river of nonsense exposition, in the middle of the second act. But Cameron is no idiot. When Kyle (Biehn) has to tell the whole story of the future, and John Conner, and the Terminators to Sarah (Hamilton), he does so in the middle of a car chase. And not just any old blah-blah middle-of-the-backlot run-of-the-mill car chase. This is a next level, look out French Connection (1971) car chase, and it’s one of three in the film. You could do a film like this much less artfully, but then it would be Highlander (1986).

Even the few elements fo special effects in this film that don’t age super well (spoiler: it’s those moments when there’s any kind of rear-screen projection, or when The Terminator (Schwarzenegger) is clearly a puppet) have their delightful charm. I can kind of see how a grade-a control freak like James Cameron now wants to exclusively make films using the motion capture technology he adopted in Avatar (2009). He is no longer at the mercy of the elements, time, or people. It sounds nice, but I’m starting to miss great movies made outside of a computer, especially when James Cameron is making them.

Aliens (1986)

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Carrie Henn

Have I Seen it Before: It is one of the greats..

Did I Like It: It is one of the greats…

*I viewed the 1990 special edition, which is notedly preferred by director James Cameron.*

There can be a problem with director’s cuts, especially when the vast majority of additional footage is lumped into the first forty-five minutes of the movie. Hard to front load a story like that, but Cameron is right in his introduction. This movie has 40 miles of bad road before things go truly pear-shaped, but when it does, that first bunch of the film is necessary. Without them, the film would be less. It would be more like most of the bland movies that exist now. Most writing advice would have you start your story as close to the meat of the action is possible, and I’m glad that Cameron ignored—at least in one format—that advice.

This first sequel in the Alien series is a master class in floating opposites, and miraculously, it makes a strong argument for itself as the superior film. Where Alien (1979) is steeped in subtext within the relationships between the characters. 

The original film straddles between a space-based haunted house movie, demonic possession movie, slasher, and monster man-in-suit shocker, all while staying firmly weighted in Horror. This one embraces a full-throated action vein by becoming a Vietnam War picture in space, but still feels of a piece with the original film. It’s a tricky thing to do, as most movies in a series that try to jump genre usually have to jettison much of what made the earlier films work.

The people of the Nostromo in the original film don’t particularly care for each other or the work they do in the cosmos, but they’ve been on the job for so long that they would never dare speak about it. In this film, the marines have much more clearly defined relationships. The subtext is gone, but the motivations are far clearer, and richer for the specificity. In the original film, Ripley’s (Weaver) mission to recover the ships cat is a gaping flaw in the work, if for no other reason than not one character appears to have any particular attachment to the cat up until that point. Here, Ripley’s forming of a surrogate family makes her quest to recover Newt (Henn) makes perfect sense.

Is this sequel superior to its progenitor? I’m not sure there is an objective answer to that, as it will almost exclusively (as with a great many things) be a matter of taste. It’s certainly in the running, and it isn’t exactly like any other film in the series can compete in that fight.