We Need To Be A Little More Constructive Here, Okay?

After watching the first Terminator film, I felt an almost overwhelming urge to watch the first sequel, that which filled so many days for me back in my childhood. And so watch it I did.

Like with series such as The Godfather and the Aliens series, the Terminator series is another where the second film is possibly better than the already acclaimed and successful lead-off. With Terminator 2: Judgement Day, I'm going to come right out and say that it is definitely better than the original. Set a number of years after the original, the 1991 film focuses on John Connor (Ed Furlong) and his mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton), with John as a rebellious juvenile in foster care, convinced his mother, now locked up in a mental facility, is crazy for her beliefs regarding her initial Terminator encounter.

However, when a second version of the initial Terminator who had been sent to kill his mother (Arnold Schwarzenneger reprising) comes after John he is quickly convinced, and the two set about escaping from the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a far more advanced terminator, rescuing Sarah and destroying the SkyNet software and hardware that enable the entire future to happen in the manner outlined by the Terminator.

Terminator 2 is far more action-packed and the effects really ramp it up. However, it is also a great story well told and well acted from all involved. Furlong does really well as the young kid (watching it I remembered the phenomenal crush I had on him when the film was still new - I would have been about the same age as he was in the film whilst this crush was going on, so I promise it wasn't anything untoward...) and Hamilton pulls in a stunning futuristic action fantasy performance on par with Sigourney Weaver's in the second Alien film (or Aliens as it is otherwise known...) Schwarzenneger has more lines but it is ostensibly the same characterless character, and Patrick is suitably unemotional and cold to watch.

James Cameron flexed his muscle with this film (at the time, the first film to cost more than US$100mil to produce) and showed that he is very strong when he's working with the right material, which is pretty much all he ever does. He cut his teeth with the first one, and rammed it home with the second. Everything works, which gives good reason to the fact that Terminator 2 won four Oscars from six nominations while the first won zero from zero (apparently the first and I believe only time a sequel has won an Oscar where the original hadn't even been nominated.) Truly entertaining from start to finish, 5 stars.

I'm Alone, I Am Not Lonely.

I sometimes think I am quite easily flabbergasted. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. I guess in retrospect it's easy to state an opinion on what should have happened, but I do wonder what people were thinking at the time. I mean, looking back, do we really think Braveheart was the best film of 1995? Really? I'm not even talking just out of the nominated five films for the Academy Awards. 

Here we have Heat, a film that is very highly respected, was highly critically acclaimed, reasonably commercially successful, united two acting legends on screen in the same scene for the first time, with an excellent and exciting supporting cast. And it gets nothing? Really? Doesn't seem right, does it?


Heat is a crime saga set in LA, and it's quite a big film. There's a lot going on in it, and I'm not going to try and summarise it because, well, it's hard work and I'm so behind on my writeups that I need to get cracking on the rest of them. Briefly, Robert De Niro plays criminal Neil McCauley, pursued by Al Pacino's Lt. Vincent Hanna. Working with McCauley are fellow crims Chris (Val Kilmer), Nate (Jon Voight), Michael (Tom Sizemore) and Donald (Dennis Haysbert.) McCauley is getting mixed up with a girl, Eady (Amy Brenneman), complicating his no-attachment dogma, while Hanna's marriage to Justine (Diane Venora) is falling about because of his commitment to his work, leaving his stepdaughter Lauren (Natalie Portman) stranded and despairing.


Michael Mann directs his own screenplay, and does it with his usual brilliance. His Heat to Ali period was fantastic, yielding such solid films. His fearless and bold directing style allows you to seep into the mood of the characters and the situations, giving you time to breathe with them in the few occasions there are moments to spare, and sucking you into their world of glamour and dirt with beautiful photography (from Dante Spinotti) and a terrific use of music (score from Elliot Goldenthal.)


Heat is a luscious landscape, a true modern epic, taking inspiration from the methodical yet languid stylings of films such as The Godfather, imbuing them with modern moralities and a lack of judgement. There's respect flying everywhere in this picture. The performances are uniformly superb, expected from heavyweights De Niro and Pacino, but bolstered by the likes of Kilmer and Sizemore - why has Val Kilmer fallen off the face of the planet? We love him!


5 stars.