Well good day there ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to my favourite episodical film diary.....thingie. Woot! This week I have been to the old cinemateque and viewed a film called End Of Watch. The review of which will be out early December but I can tell you now, it impressed me.
And apart from that, and many NaNoWriMo words (last week, eep!), the only other film I watched this week was:
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)
Since having talked about The Terminator for my blog entry a few weeks ago, I have had an urge to watch its larger, more epic sequel. Now I have done so (again!). It is a good film, a really really good film. Not as good as The Terminator mind (a point I still stand by) but it is a very, very good film.
James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger return with a film that cleverly re-writes the villain from the first film as the protector instead to a young John Connor (Edward Furlong) after the events of the previous film failed to get his mother, Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) killed. The villain of the film is now an insidious and creepy liquid metal terminator, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick).
Certainly the scope and feel of the film is epic in comparison with the small scale human story of the previous entry, in this case, the questions of fate and destiny are strongly challenged and the locales of the film change and the characters undergo deep changes. I find that in some instances, the pacing of the film suffers quite badly as a result of this: the fantastic action scenes in the mall and insane asylums give way to much longer, slower scenes before the introduction of Miles Dyson and it kicks off again.
Certainly Schwarzenegger is in the prime of his acting career here, his unchanging mask being used for comedy effect several times although the 'fatherhood/friendship' bond he and John develop never really seems as potent as Sarah's desire to kill the Terminator, naturally being deeply distrustful. Robert Patrick is where much of the film's success lies though, even when the stunning CGI (even by today's standards) takes over, it is Patrick's single mindedness and movements that chill.
The film does go on for too long but at least the emotional buildup is rewarded in a huge heartbreaking scene at the end:
Edward Furlong as John Conner starts out as the kind of child a prospect of watching a two hour film where a machine tries to kill him would be a pleasure, but rapidly (and I don't really know when in the film) becomes a good character, able to hold his own against the violent and dangerous Linda Hamilton. Throw in a good cameo from Michael Biehn and a chilling series of nightmare sequences and you have a film with plenty of emotional clout.
Not as tight as The Terminator, but far more epic in scope and vision, this sequel stands alone as a fantastic piece of cinema, filled with jaw dropping action and the more tender moments that really make certain scenes hit home.
Trailer: