Crashland – Chapter 2

Time’s running out to get your votes in. Crashland, my cyberpunk contribution to the serial novel site of Story Time.com has been up for a week and the votes have been trickling in. In Chapter 1, the great crash occured, and the story’s protagonist found himself wandering in the dark towards the only lights still on in the city. It ended with him being confronted by a group of men in the street, and they seemed intent on stopping him…

From that chapter, I asked voters what they wanted to see next. Would Holden try to reason with them, would he attack them, or would he run away? All of this is pursuant to his making his way to the middle of the town where there appears to be some kind of rescue effort in effect. What he does here could either end his chances of reuniting with his family or simply be a diversion along a long and difficult path.

Out of ten votes so far, seven said they wanted to see Holden try to reason with the men. One said to attack, two said to run away. But there’s still time to determine his fate. You have the power readers, after all, this is a serial novel. What you say, goes!

Crashland-chapter 1

28 Days Later…

Hello all! In honor of Halloween, I thought I’d jump ahead on my review list again and cover a zombie flick! And not just any zombie flick, a good, scary and even poignant thriller known as 28 Days Later! Not only is this movie a cult favorite, its also a films that got in on the ground floor of this new zombie craze.

Yes, for some reason, zombie movies have been pretty popular in the new millennium. Maybe it’s a retro thing, but it seems that within the last ten years, there have been a plethora of writers/directors who have breathed new life into this old movie genre. After 28 Days was released in 2002, it was followed by the Resident Evil movie, House of the Dead in 2003 (another video game adaptation), the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004), Shaun of the Dead, Doom (2005), Slither (2006), The Zombie Diaries, I Am Omega (2007), I Am Legend, Day of the Dead (2008, another remake), followed by Quarantine, Zombieland in 2009, and the list goes on. In fact, I’m not even taking the time to mention all the sequels and lesser known titles that came between these ones!

The point is, whereas in previous decades, people could expect a low-budget zombie movie at least once a year, since 2000, there have been multiple entries every year, sometimes as many as a dozen! And with this explosion in titles, there’s been some variety to how zombies were presented as well. Whereas in the old zombie classics, zombies were slow witted and slow moving – literally the walking dead – in new movies and re-imaginings, zombies were fast moving and sometimes highly intelligent. In fact, there’s even a neat table over at Yahoo movies that places zombie films within the context of these two criteria:

How Dangerous Is A Zombie?

If one were to use that table to discuss this movie, the zombies would be placed on the high end of both speed and intelligence, making them VERY dangerous. And, as I will mention soon enough, their take on the creatures was also quite realistic, at least when compared to other franchises. Okay, get comfortable and be ready to get scared, its horror movie time!

(Background—>):
Compared to most horror films, 28 Days had a relatively fair budget of about 5 million pounds or 7 million US$ (based on the 2002 rate of exchange). It’s overall gross, however, was over 82.7 million dollars, and it even spawned a graphic novel and a sequel (haven’t seen or read them yet, but working on it ;)). In addition, the movie was the result of collaboration between writer Alex Garland and esteemed British director Daniel Boyle, whose film credits include Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, Sunshine,Slumdog Millionaire and The Beach (which Garland also wrote).

The film was also well received by audiences and critics, earning itself several awards for direction, cinematography and acting in both Europe and the US in the process. It was even placed on two top 100 and one top 20 list as one of the best horror movies of all time. In addition to its direction and acting, critics praised it for its story, allegory and humanistic elements. In short, the movie went in with a modest budget and limited fanfare, but came out a cult hit and a commercial success. Little wonder why its seen as one of the best movies of the genre, people love underdogs as much as they do hidden gems!

(Content—>):
28 Days Later essentially begins with an act of activism, where some well-meaning animal rights people storm into an animal testing facility and try to free some chimpanzees who are undergoing weird tests. In the course of the break-in, one of the doctors tries to stop them, saying that the chimps are infected with “rage”. This opening kind of seemed hokey to me at first, but afterward I came to see how effective it was. We get a brief prologue that tells us how things began, but which doesn’t weight us down with long-winded or unlikely explanations.

This is always a challenge in zombie movies, explaining how and why the dead are up and walking. In this case, they chose to go with a virus that was like super-rabies, making the infected extremely violent and spreading through the exchange of bodily fluids. Kind of brilliant if you think about it, explains all the zombie-like behavior while still being somewhat plausible. Of course, they are basically saying that animal rights activists will be responsible for the apocalypse, but who cares? It’s fiction!

We then cut to a hospital where the main character – a bike courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy*) – wakes up from a coma and realizes he’s all alone (for some reason, we get a full-frontal shot of his junk here too!) He then gets up and begins to look for answers and food, finding only abandoned buildings and empty streets. After making his way out into central London, he quickly realizes something terrible must have happened. All the missing signs and news pinups about the “End of Days” seem to attest to that. Naturally, he travels to a church where he finds pews filled with corpses, and one survivor, who for some reason seems to want to bite him…

*People may remember Murphy as The Scare Crow in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

But of course, he is narrowly saved by two healthy people – a woman named Selena (Naomi Harris) and her friend – who explain to him what’s been going on. Here too, the exposition was kept mercifully brief, the two basically telling him that a virus has devastated the country and that its spread through blood, bites, etc. He agrees to team up with them, but only if they can swing by his house, as he needs to know if his parents are still alive. Naturally, they are not, and infected people soon attack them. Selena’s friend is bitten in the process, and she is forced to kill him. Jim is upset by this, but Selena explains that this is how it is now. Needless sentiment lead to hesitation, which in turn leads to death. Now Selena and Jim are alone to wander the streets looking for other survivors.

Their search brings them to an apartment building where a father and daughter are holed up, and using Christmas lights to attract other survivors. A desperate chase follows as they are forced to run up the stairs as the infected chase them. But eventually they get to the landing where the father, Frank (Brendon Gleeson), is waiting for them in full riot gear! After beating down the infected, he lets them in and they meet his daughter, Hanna (Megan Burns), and begin swapping plans. It seems Frank has a radio and from their high elevation, they’ve been able to picking up a military radio transmission coming from Manchester that tells of a cure, food and shelter. The four of them make plans to go there straightaway.

Getting there is an adventure to be sure, the four having to flee from infected as they get out of the city and there being a few pacing scenes along the way. But eventually, they arrive to find the town of Manchester on fire, and that the transmission is coming from a military base nearby. However, the base appears to be deserted, the only inhabitants being infected crows and bodies. What follows is a heart wrenching scene where Frank gets a drop of blood in his eye and begins to change. He has just enough time to tell his daughter that he loves her before they realize he’s been infected and he goes bat-shit crazy! That’s when the army men reveal themselves and open fire on Frank!

They are then taken to the base’s main compound where the CO, Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston), welcomes them. Jim and Selena are cautiously optimistic now that they have some protection and a roof over their head, but Hannah is understandably bitter. Her father is dead, after all, and these men were responsible. In the course of the next few days, the Major shows Jim their set up and explains what they’re doing. Seems they’ve been luring the infected to the compound and then killing them with bullets and landmines. They’ve also been keeping a live one for study so they can see how long they survive without the ability to feed. This one they call Mailer, since he was once one of them…

However, things go awry when a few things become clear. For one, the boys seem to like Selena, and are quite pushy on that fact. When Jim tries to intervene to keep them off her, the Major explains that his mens’ sanity has been hanging by a thread and he’s had to make promises to keep their morale from collapsing and them from offing themselves. In short, he promised them women… Suddenly, the signal, the one that lured them in with promises of safety, food and a cure makes perfect sense. The Major and his men, who think the world has gone to hell, are looking to create their own little society here, and need breeding stock! Jim resists, as does one of the soldiers, and the Major orders that they be shot.

While Selena and Hannah are forced to don dresses and prepare for an evening of rape, Jim manages to give the soldiers the slip and runs off. Before the other soldier is shot, he gives Jim some words of encouragement. The Major and the others insist the world is dying, he says, but he’s seen planes going overhead and thinks that’s a pretty strong indication that the carnage must be reserved to Britain. Jim takes some hope from this too, and begins to hatch a plan. He returns to the abandoned outpost where they first met the Major’s men and sets off the siren. This lures the Major and some of his troops, as they know that the siren will draw unwanted attention. When they show up, Jim manages to kill some of them, with the help of some infected, of course.

Back at the base, Selena sets Hanna free and is cornered by one of the soldiers who is about to rape her. However, Jim has returned to the base at this point and unleashes Mailer on them. While he creates all kinds of carnage, Jim manages to break in and kill the soldier who was going to rape Selena with his bare hands. Selena thinks he’s been infected too and is prepared to kill him, but hesitates just long enough to realize he’s clean. We quickly realize that she’s in love with Jim now, as she showed no hesitation when killing her old companion. The two kiss and reunite with Hannah, and all three commandeer a vehicle outside and prepare to drive off.

However, Major West is waiting for them and shoots Jim in the stomach. But Mailer shows up in time to grab West before he can shoot anyone else, and Hannah drives while Selena tends to Jim’s wound. The three then drive to a hospital where Selena tends to his wounds in a frantic montage of quick cut-scenes. Then, after being in a coma for another 28 days, Jim wakes up and finds that he’s recovering in bed, this time in some remote cottage. The three of them are now in the countryside where Hannah and Selena have prepared a massive cloth banner that spells out HELLO. Jim is now awake just in time to help them deploy it and to see a Finnish fighter jet fly overhead. The movie ends with Selena asking sarcastically, “Do you think he saw us this time?”

(Synopsis—>):
Apparently, Boyle and Garland also came up with a number of alternate endings as well, two of which were filmed and a third which never made it past storyboard. In the first, which was meant to be the original ending, Jim dies in the hospital, leaving Selena and Hannah to carry on. However, this ending was rejected after some test screening audiences said it was “too bleak”. Though the scene was meant to convey that the two ladies survived, audiences believed they were marching off to certain death. The second alternate ending included the rescue banner at the very end, but without Jim being present, so as to show that the ladies made it without him.

A third, which never made it past storyboard, was a radical departure. In this one, Jim, Selena, Hannah and Frank converge on a medical facility rather than a military base, the same one where the infected apes escaped from at the beginning. Frank is still infected, but it turns out that there is a cure available here. Unfortunately, the doctor at the base informs them that the cure consists of a full blood transfusion, and only Jim is a blood match. He therefore sacrifices himself to save Frank, and the movie ends. This ending was rejected by Boyle and Garland though, since they realized it was unrealistic. In essence, if an infection can spread through even a drop of blood, no amount of transfusing would work!

While they didn’t go with the ending they wanted, the movie still conveyed the same message all around. In it, we are given a pretty realistic take on zombies, one which ties in with the dangers of epidemics and how modern, industrial societies are vulnerable to infectious diseases. In addition, we get a story that’s chock full of allegory about the human condition. Whereas some people survive by becoming selfish and doing whatever they have to to go on – in Selena’s case, cutting all ties, in the Major’s case, promising his men women – ultimately, people are redeemed through acts of self-sacrifice and empathy.

Frank shows this through his abundant sense of generosity and how he’ll do anything to make sure his daughter survives. Selena demonstrates this by saving Jim and Hannah, allowing herself to care for them even though she’s presumably become hardened and only cares about staying alive. And of course, Jim demonstrates this by putting himself in danger to save Selena and Hannah, even though it nearly costs him his life. And of course, the three make it in the end only by mutual dependency and love. There’s even the bit about the rogue soldier who would rather die than give in to hopelessness and take part in a gang rape.

And that’s the movie. Simple, scary, effective and entertaining! It’s rare that a movie will come along that can cover all these bases, but this one managed to do it quite well. Its also a reminder that within the realm of low-budget cinema, there are some genuine gems waiting to be found. Hell, one could even make the case that low budgets are essential to the success of some movies. It ensures that there aren’t any over-the-top special effects to make it look fake, or a sense of mass appeal to water down the plot. And it just goes to show you what can happen when good acting, writing and direction come together!

28 Days Later
Entertainment Value: 8.5/10
Plot: 9/10
Direction: 9/10
Total: 9/10

T2!

Normally, if I do a review, I try to re-familiarize myself with the material before writing about it. That way I’ll be sure not miss anything. It’s only been on occasion that I’ve done one strictly from memory, and that’s assuming it’s still fresh. That was certainly the case with Independence Day and Terminator: Salvation, the latter I had seen just a few weeks before, and the former I’d seen so many times that I really didn’t need to see it again! However, this was not the case with The Terminator. Here was a movie I had not seen in years. Make that MANY years, and yet I penned my review almost entirely from what I could remember of it. Not smart! Even less smart to watch it immediately thereafter and realize all the points I missed! Luckily, I still have two more movies to do in the franchise, and most of what I noticed applies directly to the sequel!

First off, James Cameron was guilty of recycling actors even more than I thought. Michael Beihn, Bill Paxton, and Jennette Goldstein all played prominent roles in Aliens (Hicks, Hudson and Vasquez) and were around for either T1 or T2, in some cases, both. But I forgot about Lance Henrikson, the man who played Bishop in Aliens. Turns out, he played one of the LA detectives in the first movie who got his ass shot off when evil Arny came knocking! Wish I hadn’t glossed over those guys in my T1 review, turns out they were actually pretty important. In any case, that makes four actors whom he used for both franchises, and I’m betting there were more in the background somewhere…

On top of that, I came to see just how many action sequences were reused in T2. I don’t want to get too specific just yet, but let’s say that action scenes involving motor bikes, big-rigs, car jumping and pile ups were also reused from the first movie. The only real difference was the budget, and of course Arny was now a protagonist instead of a force of pure malevolence. And there was also one all-important theme that made it into both Aliens and T2, and that was the theme of reconciliation between man and woman and humans and machines! But more on that later. Having just watched the movie and it still fresh in my mind, let’s get to the specifics of T2, one of the biggest and most successful sequels of all time!

(Background—>)
T2 was generally lauded by critics, all of whom thought that Arny did a great job reprising the role that complimented his particular brand of talents (his natural grandeur and presence, for example). Cameron’s gift for action direction was also seen as a big plus, and with three successful movies under his belt (T1, Aliens, and The Abyss), he now had a bigger budget and a degree of creative freedom he did not have with the before. And as I said in my first Terminator review, T2 also did better at the box office, not proportionally speaking, but certainly in terms of overall gross. And according to some, it was one of those rare movies that was believed to be better than the original. I’m not one of them, but I can certainly see why others might think so. On the whole, T2 was bigger, glitzier, and a lot more fun than the first. It’s mass appeal, made possible by its awesome action sequences, intense pace, and cutting-edge special effects which involved the use of CGI (something brand-new at the time) were sure to please. It also did a good job of wrapping up the temporal paradox presented in the first movie, and offered a way out of said paradox that was both believable and consistent with it. It may not have been as gritty, realistic or smart as the original, but that was to be expected. Originals are meant to set the tone and establish the parameters, sequels to expand on them. And in that respect, T2 was a fitting follow-up to the first, superior in some respects but certainly not better.

(Content—>)
The movie opens with scenes from modern day LA, moving from traffic jams and pedestrian crossings to a playground with children at play. This is clearly a “before” scene, where the music is foreboding and things suddenly slow down, with the sound of children laughing in the background. And then, the big white out. If this isn’t indication enough that something terrible has happened, we immediately cut to the “after” scene – a blackened ruin littered with skeletons and rubble. We are told that is what Los Angeles looks like in 2029, cold, dark, and dead. Linda Hamilton’s voice over then reminds us of the relevant facts, how billions died on Aug. 29th 1997 (“Judgement Day”), and those who survived lived only to face a worse horror… the war against the machines. We then get a moment of pure symbolism as a machine foot crushes a human skull, followed immediately thereafter by one of pure action porn!

All over the post-apocalyptic landscape, machines are attacking, purple tracers fill the sky, and human resistance fighters mobilize to fight back. This sequence was certainly superior to the ones in the first movie. There, the post-apocalyptic battle scenes involved just a few people and models, fighting in a limited fashion that gave the impression of guerrilla-warfare rather than an epic confrontation. In T2, there were literally hundreds of people and models being used, and the pace and scale was faster and bigger. The humans aren’t hiding here, they are out in full force, fighting, dying, shooting and killing. This gives the impression of a genuine war: ugly, awesome, and epic! Naturally, this was due to budgets, but that doesn’t change the fact that T2’s opening action sequence was far more kick-ass! We even get a shot of John Conner, the future version. He’s grizzly, determined, and surveying the field while his mother continues to let us in on things: Years back, a Terminator was sent back in time to kill her before she could give birth to this illustrious man – who is looking mighty heroic right now – and failed. Now, another one is on the way, hoping to strike at Conner himself. But the resistance has sent another warrior, and only time will tell which one reaches him first…

And, much like in the first movie, we cut back and forth between three points of view: Arny, the T1000 (played by Robert Patrick), and the main protagonists – in this case, John and Sarah. She’s in an insane asylum. The character of Doctor Silberman (Earl Boen), who in the first movie pronounced Kyle Reese insane, is back and saying the same thing about her. John is in foster care, is clearly disillusioned over the fact that his mother is locked up, and chooses to take it out on his foster parents. That’s an immediate selling point to this movie: the idea that anyone who knew the future would be a Cassandra, shouting to the wilderness and being totally ignored by the people (or in this case, committed). Conner’s delinquency is also a realistic touch. We know he will grow up to a hero someday, but right now, he’s a pissed-off adolescent who’s confused and bewildered. On the one hand, he hates his mother for apparently lying to him for so many years, and on the other he obviously misses her. Remember that photo he gave Kyle Reese, the one she had taken of herself at the end of the first movie? Well, turns out he’s kept it. Must be some embers still left in that hearth, huh?

Anyway, Arny has his scene where he wanders into a biker bar naked and wrecks the place up in order to get his hands on some badass looking clothes and a Harley. This is of course a retake from the first movie, but unlike the first where the evil Arny killed to get them, the good Arny in this one merely brutalizes a few people. Yep, this is the good guy… baby-steps I guess! And just like in the first movie, the bad guy has an easier time, simply killing a police officer and then commandeering his vehicle. Turns out when you’ve got liquid metal for skin, you don’t need clothes. You just morph your surface layer and boom, you’re good to go! But alas, the T1000 (as Arny explains later) cannot form complex machines, so he still needs the policeman’s car and weapons.

The three finally meet and, just like in the first, we get a tense, climactic moment with slow-motion and intense music. John sees Arny as he pulls his shotgun out of a box of roses (product placement, Guns and Roses did the theme music!) and thinks he’s out to kill him. But those fears are generally allayed when Arny levels the gun and yells his famous tagline, “Get down!”, and shoots the T1000 behind him. A gun fight ensues, followed by a wrestling match, followed by a big-ass car chase. Again, elements of the first are at work here again. In T1, Arny was chasing Sarah and Kyle on a Harley, followed shortly thereafter by a truck. Much like in the first, it all ends with the truck crashing and exploding. This is not to say that it wasn’t awesome this time around though. As usual, Cameron’s flare for action-direction makes the scene tense and beautiful, and the way Arny keeps flipping that gun around to reload it? You look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t think that was badass the first time you saw it! And of course, the sequence ends with the T1000 walking from the fiery wreckage unharmed, provided by some of those cutting-edge digital effects I mentioned!

John then has a chat with Arny about what’s going on. Some funny lines here: “Don’t take this the wrong way but… you’re a Terminator, right?” Keen grasp of the obvious. “Okay… And you’re not here to kill me! I figured that part out for myself!” Well he did save your as several times in just the last few minutes so… duh! What makes this funny is that while freaked out, John clearly has a framework in place for understanding what’s going on. In spite of the fact that he’s spent the last few years thinking his mom was crazy, he still remembers everything she taught and what he’s just witnessed just confirmed it. Sure he’s freaked out by all the violence and near-death, but one he’s not is shocked. He doesn’t even get that phased when Arny tells him that it was HIM – John Conner – who sent him; his future self, that is. Somehow, it all just makes sense given his upbringing. And of course, Arny takes the time to explain the particulars of their enemy. Let me see if I can condense it all into a few bullet points here:
> T1000, advanced prototype, liquid metal, here to kill you.
> Can’t form weapons beyond knives and stabbing tools.
> Can also morph into things, but only things of equal size
> Can impersonate other people and knows where you will go
> Oh yeah, and its not known if he can be destroyed or not

Yikes! That’s another thing that I enjoyed about this movie. At first, it seems like Arny can defeat the T1000 as he manages to save John Conner from his repeated murderous attempts. However, as more confrontations ensue and Arny is forced to go toe to toe with him, the T1000 begins to show his superiority. Not only does he managed to take Arny’s arm off, he even manages to take Arny out. Well, temporarily deactivate, but you get the idea. In the end, Anry’s only able to win by outsmarting him, and relying on the help of John and Sarah.

But getting back to the storyline, Arny soon confirms that the T1000 has already killed John’s foster parents and warns him that his mother could be next. But not before John has an expository scene where he expresses all his angst over how his mother taught him everything he knew, only to be taken away from him and declared a delusional psychotic. And now, it appears she was right all along, so naturally he wants to find her. But no, Arny reminds him, the T1000 would have anticipated that, and will try to impersonate her and will kill her in the process. John freaks, a ruckus ensues, and it ends with John realizing that Arny must obey his orders. So naturally, he orders Arny to help him save his mother (Oh, and not to kill anyone, on a count of he almost killed two people during that ruckus).

They then get to the asylum where Sarah is attempting to make her escape. Seems people told her that a dead-ringer for the man that shot up a police station and killed 17 officers in 84′ was spotted at a local mall. Thus why she needs to escape tonight. If things are happening again, she needs to make sure her son is safe! She does this smashing the face of the guy who’s been physically and sexually abusing her for the last few months and taking Dr. Silberman hostage. Naturally, we don’t feel sorry for either of these people, since the attendee is a dick and Dr. Silberman is a cynical douche! John and Arny are simultaneously breaking in, which begins with Arny knee-capping the guard at the front (he said he wouldn’t kill, wasn’t nothing in there about knee-capping!) They meet up inside as Arny steps off the elevator right in front of her, and a slow-motion scene ensues where Sarah recognizes him and becomes so terrified that she runs back in the direction of the guards she eluded not a moment previous. Arny saves her and issues one the tag-lines from the first movie: “Come with me if you want to live”. John is also there and lets just her know that Arny’s cool, right before the T1000 shows up right behind them and tries to kill them. Dr. Silberman witnesses all this, and is no doubt going to need therapy himself!

Another chase scene ensues. Arny and Sarah protect John, steal a police car, and start driving backwards while shooting. The T1000, for his part, sprouts swords and crowbars from his arms and pursues them. Here too we see a scene being rehashed from the first movie, where the evil Terminator jumps on their car and starts smashing through the window, trying to get his hands on his target and almost succeeding. But in the nick of time, they manage to shake him with some keen maneuvering and shotgun blasts. This time around, its Arny who does the rescuing, blowing off one of the T1000’s limbs and sending him flying off the back end of their car. Having made it away for the second time, the three of them start make their way out of town in great haste.

While in the desert, we get some pacing scenes as Arny, Sarah Conner, and John get to talking, and in the course things, learn some things about each other. For example, Sarah wants to know how Judgement Day happened, how Skynet was created and who’s responsible. Arny reveals that a man named Mr. Miles Dyson is responsible for the breakthroughs that led to Skynet’s creation, and that the key developments are happening pretty much as they speak. We already know from a rather telling scene earlier that Mr. Dyson, over at Cyberdyne systems, was the recipient of the remains of the first Terminator and is working on a big AI-related breakthrough. Seems that Conner was right, that someone conspired to remove them from the factory where Sarah left them, and made sure they got into the “right” hands. Sounds… conspiratorial! In any case, it was the first Terminator’s broken CPU and remaining arm, which came from the future, that ended up being the basis for Dyson’s research, and hence Skynet’s creation… The temporal paradox strikes again!

There are echoes of Alien and Aliens here. In those movies, the megacorp Weylan-Yutani kept screwing over its own people in order to get their hands on the alien specimen. Here, however, we are getting it more in the form of the dark future/cautionary tale, where networked, intelligent computers are responsible for nearly wiping out humanity, largely because we made the mistake of trusting our fate to them. But unlike the first movie, T2 introduces us to the human side of that equation, how it was human avarice that led to Skynet’s creation, and how Skynet decided to kill humanity because they tried to pull the plug on it. Doesn’t make Skynet any nicer, but it was a nice touch, as is the humanizing of the people responsible which follows later on. But at the moment, Sarah is obviously perturbed by this information, and we can tell she’s going to do something about it very soon…

Also, there’s a very important scene in all this that didn’t make it into the original movie but came with the director’s cut. This is the scene where Arny reveals that all Terminators have their CPU’s set to “read-only” when they are sent out, a provision against them exercising too much independent thought. While they are held up in an abandoned garage and nursing their wounds, John proposes that they remove Arny’s chip and switch this fail-safe off so he can be of more use to them. After removing it, Sarah tries to smash the chip with a hammer but John stops her. She tells him this could be their last chance to be “it”, and that John doesn’t understand this because he’s never had to kill one of them. But John insists that they need Arny, that “it” is a “he”, and that if he’s to be a great leader someday, his mom ought to start taking his ideas seriously. She decides to go with him, although just barely, and lets Arny live. This scene is important because it establishes that in spite of the fact that the good Arny saved them, Sarah still doesn’t trust him and is willing to kill him as soon as the opportunity arose. One would expect this considering what the first Arny bot put her through.

There’s also the amusing scene where John tries to teach Arny to smile. This is just one of many where John is trying to teach him how to “be more human”. Most of these are pretty cheesy, consisting of one-liners and hand gestures, but this one was actually funny and even made sense in the overall context of the movie. Later, we see Arny pulling facial expressions, and the more anal-retentive critic would surely want to point out that this is supposed to impossible. Cyborg’s don’t feel emotion, hence they don’t smile, smirk, or shrug. The subtleties of facial expressions and how they convey emotions would surely be beyond them. But, if they knew someone was teaching them what faces to pull and when, they just might find it realistic and shut the hell up!

Anyhoo, John, Arny and Sarah show up at Enrique’s hideout. This would be the former Green Beret gun-running dude John mentioned with earlier, one of several dude’s she shacked up with while he was growing up. While at Enrique’s hideout, they start stockpiling guns and getting some new vehicles together. Arny gives us a preview of things to come when he hoists up the mini-gun and smirks at John. “It’s you, definitely,” John says. And in the course of things, Sarah watches her son and the Terminator talking and carrying on and has a revelation. Turns out that of all the father figures that had come and gone, the Terminator is actually the most ideal father figure for John. He’d never neglect him, never abuse him, and would die to protect him. We see at last a reconciliation between humanity and technology with this, not unlike the one that took place in Aliens between Bishop and Ripley. Once again, James Cameron is showing his fondness for certain themes. Still, it works here. After all the paranoia and hatred Sarah has been living with over the years, she finds herself finally able to trust her enemy – a killing machine – with John’s life. Irony!

But then, Sarah has another one of her apocalyptic dreams, and this one is particularly graphic! She even sees an alternate version of herself playing with a baby. This is a particularly symbolic moment, we get the impression is seeing what she’d look like if history had worked out just a little different. And like everyone in the playground, she doesn’t appear to be able to hear Sarah as she screams at them to run. In any case, they are all vaporized when a nuke goes off in the distance, graphically! I tell ya, that shot scared me when I first saw it. I believe it was the first case of the effects of a nuclear blast being caught on film. Sarah then wakes up with a start and she sees the words that she herself carved in the picnic table not a moment earlier. “No Fate”, which paraphrases what John told Reese to tell her: “The future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.” Ironic, given the temporal nature of the story, but it certainly convinces Sarah that its time she acts. She grabs her guns, a truck, and tells John and Arny she will meet them later. It doesn’t take long for them to figure out what she’s got in mind (killing Dyson) and they head off to intercept her. Arny warns John that this is bad strategy, that the T1000 could anticipate this move, and that Dyson’s death might actually prevent Judgement Day. But of course, John tells him they have to. It’s a human thing!

They arrive at Dyson’s just in time to find that Sarah has shot up the place, put a bullet through Dyson’s shoulder and just about to deliver the coup de grace. But alas, she couldn’t. He’s still human, and she’s not a monster. So instead, they decide to fill him in on things and give him the benefit of the knowing everything his work will lead to. Arny starts by pealing the flesh off his arm and letting his robot innards tell the story. Dyson immediately recognizes the arm, since he’s got an identical one at his office. We get the distinct impression that some pretty messed up possibilities are going through his mind. In any case, Arny has his full attention now and he tells him to “listen to me very carefully.” Sarah’s voice-over fills in the rest and says that Arny told him everything – about Skynet, Judgement Day, and the war – as we cut to what is clearly several hours later. Naturally, he’s shocked and professes that he never intended for any of that to happen, but Sarah is naturally unconvinced. Seems “men like him” are the reason the hydrogen bomb exists. They think themselves creative, but only know how to create death and destruction, so fuck em, they’re evil! Uh, remind me now, who shot up who’s place here in a homicidal attempt? But alas, because he didn’t know, and maybe to prove he’s not a bad guy, he agrees to help them, which includes destroying the lab and also the remains of the first Terminator. Hello! This is the first time those remains have even been publicly acknowledged. Everyone is surprised, except Sarah who is both feels both angry and vindicated. She’s known all along that there was some kind of cover-up and nobody believed her. Now, she’s hearing from the horses mouth that she right. Still, right or no, she still gotta feel pissed!

What follows is another tense series of scenes as they rush to Cyberdyne, commandeer the facility, and begin laying explosives. Meanwhile, the police show up, thinking they got the man who shot up the police station back in 84′, and cordon off the building. Sarah’s voiceover and a shot of them driving up a dark highway convey the significance of these scenes perfectly before they actually unfold. Essentially, after years of trying to ensure that the machine’s didn’t alter the future, they are now trying to do the same. Whereas they were just players before, doing what was required of them, they are now free-agents who have the power to change history. Arny has his scene with the minigun too where he levels all the cop cars out front, firing a couple thousand rounds and a handful of grenades into the police cruisers to gives Sarah, John and Dyson the time they need to finish rigging the place to blow. But, as promised, does so without hurting or killing a single person. Not bad, Arny! Way to respect human life! Of course, the police are pissed and start firing back at him, and their SWAT team goes on in with blood on their minds.

There’s also what appears to be a sort of reconciliation taking place between Sarah and Dyson now, paralleling once again what Ripley experienced in Aliens. Obviously, Sarah had become embittered towards her male counterparts after years of being ignored and condemned by them. After losing Reese, she wasn’t able to find a single stable father figure for John, not one who would stick around after she told him the truth at any rate. Then there were all those who condemned her and put her in an insane asylum. On top of that, there’s men like Dyson who were responsible for Skynet’s creation in the first place. But now, she and Dyson appear to be coming together thanks to their common cause. There’s even a symbolic moment where Sarah passes him the detonator and we get a close-up of it changes hands. This reconciliation is cut short however when about a dozen SWAT team members comes breaking in and fills Dyson full of holes! But once they realize the place is totally rigged, they pull back! And the three protagonists managed to make it out right before the bomb goes off and levels Cyberdyne! But the front door is still blocked and there’s no way they can make it out without some shooting. That’s when Arny issues his famous tag-line from the first movie: “I’ll be back”! He gets about a hundred bullets to his face before knee-capping and pelting all the SWAT team members with their own tear gas canisters. He then steals the SWAT van and drives it through the front foyer, thus ensuring their escape. Meanwhile, the T1000 has shown up and steals a helicopter, much as Arny stole that 18-wheeler in movie one, and is even sure to include the “get out!” tag-line to its driver.

Which brings us to chase number three! This time, the good guys are in a SWAT van and the bad guy in a helicopter. True to the first movie, there’s a change-up when the bad guy is shmucked and has to switch vehicles. Having lost his helicopter, he commandeers (what else?) an 18-wheeler and chases them into a Foundry. Really? They have Foundries in LA? Right beside of the highway to boot? Just asking… Point is, more action porn follows: Arny delivers his “Hasta la Vista, Baby” line and shatters the T1000 with a bullet. This was after he forced him to crash his truck that was apparently carrying liquid nitrogen (…really?). The bits begin to melt because there’s hot metal all around (Foundry, remember?), and the three protagonists are forced to flee again. But with nowhere to run, they have to fight it out inside the Foundry, and get pretty beat up in the process! As a climactic scene, this was quite effective, being in such a hostile environment and everyone already being wounded. You can feel the tension and danger, which is made all the more palatable since it’s clear that there is no chance of escape. With Sarah already reeling from a gunshot wound in her thigh, and Arny twisted up from the crash, it really seems like they might not make it.

And yet, they do! And I don’t think I’ll ever forget the last scene where Linda Hamilton empties a whole shotgun into the T1000’s body, one-handed! Or how Arny shows up at the last second and pops a rocket propelled grenade into his belly that blows him in half! The T1000 then falls to his death in a bath of molten metal (how’s that for irony, liquid metal man!) and things end tidily when John realizes that the metal will make a perfect disposal spot for the remains of the first Terminator. But alas, Arny realizes that he too much go into the cauldron. As long as any evidence of the future remains in the past, there will always be a chance that Skynet could still be created and Judgement Day still happen. And so the movie ends with Arny being heroically lowered into the molten metal and giving John the thumbs up before disappearing beneath the surface (John taught him how to do that, which makes it all the more sad!)

Then, there’s the very last scene, which is kind of a controversial issue for me! In the original movie, it took the form of them driving along the dark highway again, a clear metaphor for the future, with Sarah giving jer final voice-over that wraps things up nicely. She says she is finally able to face the future with hope because, as she says, “If a machine – a Terminator – can learn the value of human life, maybe we can too…” Cue music and roll credits! I get tingly just thinking about it. But in the director’s cut, the last scene was altogether different. Instead of the still uncertain but hopeful future, we get to see the picture of that future, and its totally disappointing! Apparently, its 2030 or so, Judgment Day came and went without incident, and Sarah is making another recording where she explains how she got drunk and celebrated the fact that it never came. Everyday thereafter was a gift (a line that would make it into T3). And now, she’s sitting on a park bench and watching John play with her grand daughter in that same old playground. The background shows LA of the future, a skyline that looks like something out of a bad sci-fi movie or a rerun of Star Trek (the original version). Oh, and apparently John is not the grizzled leader here, but a Congressman who fights the good fight on the floor’s of Congress.

Where do I begin? Well, for starters, this whole franchise was gritty and dark and never did more than it had to. So ending it with a scene that lays things on way too thick just seems inappropriate. There’s also the fact that its totally sappy! John becomes a peacenik Senator and everybody lived happily ever after? C’mon people! This is supposed to be a movie about post-apocalyptic nightmares and murderous machines! I can understand wanting to end it on a happy note after all the darkness and extended horror shows, but this was ridiculous! But luckily, this scene never made it in to the original. Clearly, someone felt that it would be better to let the movie end on the same note it had maintained throughout. Thus, they went with the highway ending which was best: succinct, serious, symbolic, yet still hopeful. And it wrapped up everything from the first and second movie nicely, with no wasted effort or needless screen time. Last thing you want after tying up all the loose ends is to drop a fresh load of crap on the audience! It brings the whole production down!

(Synopsis—>)
This time around, I think I’d like to start by mentioning what was weak about the film. For starters, the themes that were present in Aliens that had a way of making it into this movie too. The theme of redemption, be it between man and woman and man and machine, was present in both. As was the theme of the evil corporation working behind the scenes so it could get its hands on something dangerous, and in so doing, condemning people to death. It was only recently that I even noticed this, and it kind of brought the movie down in my estimation. However, I am hard-pressed to argue this point too finely. These themes worked too well for them to be considered weaknesses, in my estimation. It was good and fitting to see Sarah find common ground with her fellow man after so much time of being at odds with them. It was also cool and ironic that a Terminator was capable of learning the value of human life and was ultimately the greatest protector/father figure that John Conner would ever have.

And of course the action scenes that were re-hashed from the first movie. Like I said, one could take the position that this was somehow lazy or uncreative, but I’d be hard-pressed to argue that as well. Mostly, they felt like homages, inside references to stuff the audience already saw and would instantly recognize. Those are desirable in a movie, they are like punch lines that make the audience go “Ahaaaa!” And done properly, they are also amusing and entertaining. And they certainly were in this movie. Arny’s big one-liners, “Come with me if you want to live” and “I’ll be back” were both deliberate references to the first movie and they worked. The way they zoomed in on Arny’s face and that intense expression as he said the latter; everyone in the audience knew it was painfully significant!

As for the other weaknesses. These mainly took the form of the extended and deleted scenes. For the most part, they kinda sucked. The alternate ending, where Sarah and John are alive decades down the road and the world is peaceful. SUCKED! The scene where we see Dyson at home explaining his work to his wife, how he’s creating the basis for AI… that one was a tad obvious. We already get that his work is revolutionary and will pave the way towards machines that will be able to think and become self-aware. No need to come out and say it. The ones I mentioned, where they switch Arny’s CPU from read-only mode and John teaches Arny facial expressions, those were good and should have been included in my mind. There were also a few from the Foundry where we see the T1000 having some problems re-resolving after being frozen and shattered, which were also good. But of course, running-time is a factor and that’s why we have director’s cuts.

Last, but certainly not least, there’s that one big, possible plot hole in the movie. Essentially, we are told from the get-go that the machines have once again sent back a Terminator and the resistance has once again sent back a fighter of their own. Now didn’t Kyle Reese say in the first movie that they found the Terminator’s time machine when they trashed Skynet’s HQ and only one Terminator had gone in? Didn’t he also say that he was the only other one to go through and they destroyed the machine immediately thereafter? Well sure! So theoretically, John should have been safe from then on. All of this meant that the future would unfold as promised, Judgement Day would happen, and John Conner would grow up to lead the resistance to victory over the machines. There’s simply no way the machines would have known that they had failed, they don’t have a crystal ball that shows them the past or how alternate time lines are unfolding. So its not like they could just say, “Woop! We missed! Send another one!” The very act of sending Arny back was a desperate act, they’d just have to expect that however things were unfolding for them in the future was the direct result.

But, this can be explained away easily enough. For example, how could Kyle know for sure that they destroyed the time machine after he left? For all he knew, they found out that the machines had actually sent two Terminators back in time, one T101 Arny bot and one T1000 advanced prototype. The first one was sent to take out the mother, the second to take out John should the first one fail. The resistance could then say “Oh crap! We need to send another fighter of our own to deal with the second one too! Any ideas?” They looked around, saw another Arny bot, figured it would have a better shot of protecting John from a T1000, decided to reprogram it, and sent it on its merry way. THEN they destroyed the machine! Okay, that works, more or less. Only problem is… you can’t keep doing it! A third batch of Terminators would just make things stupid!

Okay, now the strengths! The movie’s action scenes were awesome! Cameron has shown again and again that he has an eye for making destruction, shoot-em-ups and car chases beautiful! Its little wonder then why he’s a renowned action director. His ideas tend to be old fashioned, but they work in the context of classic sci-fi and his directorial style brings a sense of grandeur and epicness to his work. And of course Arny, a man who embodies those traits, was well suited to what he had to offer. Not the best actor in the world, but he’s nothing if not grand and epic. And this time around, he went beyond those simple attributes to bring some heart and humanity to the Terminator, which is ultimately what makes him him. He’s Arny, the action hero with a heart of gold and a keen sense of humor!

T2 also had a very good plot. Aside from the one possible plot hole which I don’t think anyone cares about anyway, it was virtually seamless. The future that Reese knew and told Sarah about was the direct result of everything they did together in the past. The Terminators exist because the wreckage of the first one was found, John Conner exists because Reese and Sarah had sex, and so on. Kyle Reese told Sarah in the first that he was from the future, but that it was one possible future, maybe… He didn’t know. But alas, we do! It was all foretold thanks to a temporal paradox where the future influenced the past and vice versa. But this time around, they found the fulcrum of this would-be future and removed it. Anal retentive critics might say “Well, if they destroyed all of Cyberdyne’s research, wouldn’t that mean that Skynet would never exist?” Well, good point actually. Once Cyberdyne was destroyed, shouldn’t Arny and the T1000 just have disappeared? Ah, but they had that one covered! You see, as long as the T1000 and Arny were alive and in the past, there was still the chance that Skynet would be created. Hell, for all we knew, that was HOW it got created in the first place. So technically, the future could not be altered til both the T1000 and Arny were destroyed and there was no chance whatsoever that their wreckage would fall into the wrong hands… again!

Another thing worth mentioning was that this movie was made in 1991, a full seven years after the first movie and five after Aliens. In between, he did the Abyss in 1989, but that was it, and had already begun working on Aliens back in 84 when he was shooting The Terminator. So really, he and his people had years to work out the script for T2, and it really showed. I can remember seeing it when it first came out and being blown away, in part because it had such a big feel! This was the long-anticipated sequel to the first movie and just about everyone agreed that it was fun, cool, and awesomely good. Like I said, Cameron already had a reputation for being a sci-fi director after Aliens and T2 really cemented that for him. The use of cutting-edge special effects, the big-budget action scenes, the way the plot really came together; he really topped off the Terminator franchise big time with this movie. The only downside would be if someone got the bright idea to do a third movie. Worse yet, that they’d shoot it sometime after August 29th 1997, when Judgement Day was supposed to have happened! Why, then they’d have to come up with some contrived explanation for why it didn’t happen on schedule, or why the Terminators were still being sent back in time! And that would be just downright nutty…

Terminator 2:
Entertainment Value: 9/10!
Plot: 8/10
Direction: 8/10
Total: 8.5/10

Da Terminator!

Back in 1984, a budding director named James Cameron was working on two projects almost simultaneously, both of which would go on to become some of the most successful sci-fi franchises in history. These were the time-traveling cyber-thriller The Terminator and the long awaited sequel known as Aliens. And not only were they well received at the box office, both went on to become classics in their own right, earning a cult following and spawning even more sequels. Yep, the guy could write and direct back in the day, before success and fame went to his head and he got all… Titanicy! Fans of said movie might disagree, but I think it just went downhill from there! I mean, Avatar? C’mon people, that was just a rehashing of Titanic and Aliens with a whole lot of Pocahontas ripped off and plastered on.

But that’s neither here nor there (I’m so gonna trash that movie later!). Right now, I wanna talk about the movie that started it for James and turned Arny from a champion body builder and B-list actor into an A-list movie star (Which reminds me, at some point I got to review Conan, his other break-out hit!) And a warning, you can’t get into this movie without talking about Arny, a lot! So plenty of biopic info will be coming up throughout the course of this review, be warned! So without further ado, let’s get to reviewing this baddest of bad-boys!

(Background—>)
In truth, Arny was first approached by the studio to play the role of Kyle Reese. However, after reading the script, he said he would rather play the role of the murdering cyborg. After meeting with Schwarzenegger, whom he had no intention of casting in the role, Cameron became convinced. And it worked! Anry’s presence, his bad-guy face, and his imposing demeanor sold people on the Terminator. Even his accent, which was still pretty thick, seemed believable coming from a synthetic human. And while it got mixed reviews at first because of its violence, many critics saw unmistakable quality in it, hailing its tense pace, its cool action, and its storyline. In time, these positive reviews would become the general consensus, and Cameron was inspired to make the sequel. T2 did better at the box office, but compared to The Terminator‘s modest budget and overall gross, the original’s performance was far more impressive. He would NOT be involved in the later movies, which was good for him. They did not hold a candle to his original creations!

(Content—>)
The movie opens with a brief intro showing us the post-apocalyptic world of Judgement Day, explaining that there’s been a nuclear holocaust and that machines are waging a war on all those humans who still remain. Its just a taste of things to come, nothing long or drawn out. And then, we move to modern-day LA. There’s a big burst of light, and Arny standing naked in the street. He has a run in with some thugs, the leader of whom is Bill Paxton (or Hudson, as he was known in Aliens), and deprives them of their clothes. He even brutally kills one of them just to make his point: don’t mess with evil-Terminator Arny! Simultaneously, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn, Hicks from Aliens. Holy recycling actors Batman!) shows up and is going through the same motions. Like Arny, he is in a rush to find clothes, weapons, and the whereabouts on one Sarah Connor. Yet somehow, Reese seems to be having a harder time of it. Funny how being a cybernetic powerhouse who’s not afraid to brutally kill makes life easier! In fact, after visiting a gun store and making only one gaff about plasma cannons, Arny ups his body count to two! But seriously, what was up with that line: “phased plasma cannon in the 40 watt range”. Really? Wouldn’t a Terminator be programmed with what weapons were available in 1984; them detailed files Arny mentioned in the second movie? Ah well, comic relief before he blew the unsuspected store owner away, I guess.

We also get to see Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton), who for all intents and purposes seems like a regular, run of the mill lady. Naturally, we are wondering why Arny is out to kill her, and what Reese wants with her. But one thing we are sure of, Arny DEFINITELY wants to kill her. The way he is tracking down and murdering anyone named Sarah Conner in the greater LA area would seem to indicate that. As for Reese, his intentions become abundantly clear when the three of them – him, Sarah and Arny – finally come together in a barroom shootout. I can attest to the fact that this scene is one of the most tense in the entire movie. Arny comes in, Kyle shoves his way through the crowd as soon as he sees him, Arny levels his gun at Sarah’s head, she is frozen with terror, and Reese brings his gun to bear. The sound is faint for much of this… but when Reese fires, the sound returns! BOOM, BOOM, BOOM… and Arny drops! Naturally, he doesn’t stay down, and Reese has to unload what’s left of his ammo into him before he can reveal his true purpose. He makes this abundantly clear when he bends down to grab hold of Sarah’s arm and says the classic line: “Come with me if you want to live!” Naturally, she does. And in the course of fleeing from Arny, Reese fills her in on the whole situation.

In short, on Aug. 29th, 1997, a nuclear holocaust will take the lives of 3 billion people, in an event known (appropriately) as Judgement Day. The culprit is a machine known as Skynet, an AI created by humans that turned on them and spawned an entire race of machines that were designed to hunt down and destroy all human life. They are known (also appropriately!) as Terminators. Most survivors were herded into camps for what Reese refers to as “orderly disposal”, echoes of the holocaust. But one man rallied them turned them into the Resistance. His name: John Connor, Sarah’s unborn son. Shortly before Reese traveled back in time, the Resistance had broken into the machine HQ and destroyed Skynet. Hence, the machines sent a Terminator back in time to kill John Conner before he ever existed. What makes this semi-believable is the fact that at first, Sarah doesn’t believe him and tries to flee. There’s none of this “you saved my life and your we have obvious chemistry… so sure, I’ll go with you” crap. But Reese’s insistence plus the sheer unbelievability of his story manages to convince her. Cyborgs created a time machine so they could travel back in time, from the post-apocalyptic future, and kill the woman who will give birth to the boy who will lead humanity to victory over them. Hell, you can’t make shit like that up! Unless you’re James Cameron… The fact that he’s protecting her while a homicidal Arny will stop at nothing to kill her might have been an added push.

What follows in some more tense scenes where Reese and Connor attempt to flee from the Arny bot. Both he and Reese are wounded in one exchange, forcing Arny to cut out one of his synthetic eyes and wear shades. The look was born! But then Reese and Sarah Conner are arrested, Reese is charged with kidnapping, and Sarah is told that he’s a psycho, and not to listen to him! The chief also tries to allay her fears with what immediately becomes some famous last words: “There are thirty cops in this building. You’re safe.” Arny of course find them, enters and gives HIS famous words to the clerk who tells him visiting hours are over: “I’ll be back!” And boy was he ever! After driving his car through the front doors, he whoops out the artillery and proceeds to murder seventeen officers. That’s ballsy for any bad guy, lord knows the only policemen who are allowed to die in an action movie are the ones who are three days to retirement! But in the carnage, Reese manages to escape and pulls Sarah Connor out. They both then double-time it out of town.

Then, with a little privacy and some trust established, we get to see the relationship that’s taking root between Reese and Connor. Cameron also takes this opportunity to give us additional glimpses of the future. Up until this point, this was done through Reese having flashbacks and nightmares. At this point, it takes the form of Reese conveying everything John Connor told him to share with her, which includes anecdotes about the war. This is important since she will give birth to the future commander of the resistance and he needs to be prepped! Some cool temporal paradox stuff happening here. But wait, it get’s better! Eventually, Reese confesses that he always loved Sarah – well, not so much her, but the idea of her. Her picture is something he’s kept, its a little worse for wear, but still manages to capture her determination and beauty (keep this in mind, it comes up later!). Then, they have sex, and Sarah gets pregnant with – drumroll! – the future John Connor! Yes, as it turns out, Reese is Connor’s father due to this same temporal paradox, whom he will meet and become the protege of in the future. So in addition to this being a post-apocalyptic, time-travelling sci-fi thriller, it comes complete with a big twist! And not just one…

Back to Arny, who must get creative in order to find Connor again. This he does by finding her mother and takes her call when she does the obligatory good daughter thing and calls just to let her know she’s all right. He then gets the address of the hotel where they’re staying. Luckily, Connor and Reese are on top of things. Like good soldiers, they were ready to mobilize, even did some shopping so they could build some homemade plastic explosives. Another car chase ensues, Reese gets severely wounded this time, and Arny gets unseated from his motor bike, hit by an 18-wheeler, and has more of his face ripped off. The look evolves! We also get famous one-liner number two when Arny commandeers the 18-wheeler. After tossing the driver, he turns to the passenger with a half-revealed cyborg face and says… “Get out!” Of course, the guy does! When a killer cyborg steps into your vehicle with half his face missing and tells you to move it, you don’t say no! Shortly thereafter, the 18-wheeler crashes and they think Arny is dead. But no! The fully revealed Terminator crawls from the flames (symbolism moment here, harking back to the intro!) and advances on them.

And of course, Reese sacrifices himself to blow the thing in two, but Sarah is forced to deliver the finishing blow by crushing it in an hydraulic press! But before she does, she gives her own big one-liner: “YOU’RE TERMINATED, MOTHERFUCKER!” Hey, Arny can’t get em all! The movie then cuts to several months later, with Sarah, now pregnant, driving through Mexico. She’s making a recording for her John, and a small boy comes and snaps her picture. Remember that photo Reese had of her, the one that made her fall in love with him? Yep, this is it! And as we will learn in the movie that’s to come, the remains of the Arny bot were recovered… the seeds of Skynet’s creation have been sowed. The paradox is complete! And Sarah drives off into a coming storm, which is both literal and metaphorical. Yep, good line to end it on. “There’s a storms coming,” says the Mexican man. “I know,” says Connor. Cue apocalyptic music and roll credits!

(Synopsis—>)
All throughout this movie, there is a tension that in undeniable. Whether its Reese’s painful flashbacks, the Terminators constant pursuit, or the fact that the police are pursuing them as well, there’s a pace and a tempo that never lets up. It’s downright uncomfortable, the feeling of danger and impending death always there. Though the sequel was arguably more fun and a lot more impressive in terms of effects, the original was a lot grittier and emotionally honest. In a way, it kinds of like Alien and its sequel, the former being packed full of terror and claustrophobia, the latter being a big-ass thriller that relied more on action. Unfortunate that Cameron was only involved in the creation of the latter, otherwise you could say there was a clear pattern. The original sets up the plot and has a deliberately harsh tone, the latter finishes it off and is entertaining in the process. And while the latter might have overshadowed the former in terms of box office gross and overall impact, the former remains the more critically acclaimed cult-hit because its arguably smarter, if less flashy. Not to mention that from top to bottom, the feel, music and direction of the original are faithful to its central themes. One really gets the feeling throughout that this is a movie about the apocalypse and a horrific war that is yet to come. Not only that, but the time travel stuff is intriguing and thoughtful. As Sarah says at one point to Reese: “You keep speaking about things I haven’t done yet, past tense!” She is abundantly clear on the fact that she’s not comfortable with how Reese and people from his time see her, as some kind of hero. But in the end, she has to find the strength to become what she needs to be, something which she passes on to John Connor, a sense of terrible purpose.

In any case, it made for a good movie. But the real points came in the form of the plot, which was a compelling story about fate and free-will. The future is happening because of what happens in the past. They are trying to prevent the machines from altering the future, but in the process, they end up creating it. Cool, and virtually seamless. Because, as I’m sure I said in my Terminator: Salvation review, the good guys not only ensured the birth of John Connor (and hence their eventual victory over the machines), they also ensured the existence of the machines in the first place. Funny how that works, temporal tampering has the power to give and the power to take away. The real genius of it, and the thing that always bakes my noodle, is the notion that the future we know is the result of all our actions. That might seem like fatalism, but its actually far more complex. Fate implies that the future is set, when in fact, things don’t happen in spite of what you do, but because of it. Oy, I just went cross-eyed! These plot twists also set up the plot for a sequel very nicely. Now that John Connor’s existence is assured, he must prepared for the future. At the same time, he and Sarah must see what they can do to prevent it. And of course, with the war still on the horizon and the rise of the machines still to come, we can bet our bottom dollar that they will make another attempt to kill Connor before they lose the war.

And like I said, this movie set Arny and Cameron up FOR LIFE. Cameron would go on to make Aliens before directing his big-budget action-packed sequel, and Arny would land role after role in the big action line-up of the 1980’s. Funny too how that worked out. Arny had all kinds of difficulty getting work at first because of his accent and, amazingly, his name! Director’s initially thought it was too long and hard to pronounce, and that his speech would always be a stumbling block. But thanks to The Terminator, Arny went on to be famous and all those agents and producers who doubted him were left eating crow! And of course, when it came time to make the sequel, Cameron would bring Arny back and give him a chance to reprise his role, this time as the good guy, which was in keeping with Arny’s true character. Linda Hamilton would be back too, reprising her role as Sarah Conner and raising the stakes by becoming the ultimate female bad-ass!

More on that in my review, T2! Like Arny, I too will be back! (Sorry, I had to!)

The Terminator:
Entertainment Value: 8/10
Plot: 9/10
Direction: 9/10
Total: 8.5/10

AKIRA!

I’ll admit it, I don’t watch a lot of Anime. I know, that probably makes me a bad geek. But what can I say? You gotta be into that kind of thing and apparently, I’m not. But over the years, I’ve managed to find a few titles that I did like. Ninja Scroll, Vampire Hunter D, and – best of all – Akira! Yes, not only was this the best piece of Anime I’ve ever seen, it managed to tell a story that still intrigues me years later. Not long ago, I watched it for what felt like the umpteenth time and found that it I still get wrapped up by its stunning visual effects, existential ideas, and its post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk theme. I tell ya, the animators spared no expense when it came to visuals, and the story-writing and direction was reminiscent of Kubrick in a lot of ways. Much of what is happening is shown, not told, and those watching it might therefore feel the need to see it more than once. But enough gushing, time to get to the review!

(Background—>)
The movie Akira was actually based on the Manga series of the same name by Katsuhiro Otomo, who was also brought in to direct the movie. The movie condensed the storyline of the six original Manga novels, but kept all of the major themes and plot elements. Much like the comic, the movie is set in Neo-Tokyo, a post-apocalyptic, dystopian future city where biker gangs rule the streets and an authoritarian government is hiding secrets about human experiments. It was well received by critics when it was first released in 1988 and has gone to become one of the top-rated animated movies of all time, and of course it attracted a cult following in the process. However, there were also some critics who panned it, claiming that it did a poor job of condensing six volumes of Manga into one two hour movie and cut corners in the process (fans of the Dune series can no doubt relate!) These critics tended to be in the minority though, with fans and critics alike hailing the end product for its visual style, its imaginings of a dark future, and its attention to detail. I, if it hasn’t been made clear already, am one of them!

(Content—>)
The movie opens on a silent, birds-eye view of Tokyo in 1988, right before it is vaporized by what looks like a nuclear attack. The entire city is engulfed in light and things white out. The scene then changes to an orbital view, where the white light fades and we see what look like thermal images of Tokyo harbor. The white turns to red, which turns to blue, and the outline of a new city, build on the ashes of the old, appears. And then, a close up on the massive crater that was Tokyo and the name in big red letters… AKIRA! What is awesome about this scene is that there is virtually no sound at the beginning. You hear what sounds like a strong wind, but that’s all until the title rolls and a caption tells us that the setting is Neo-Tokyo, 31 years after WWIII. When the sound rolls, its just a series of loud, metallic pangs that chill you to your bones! An effective opening, conveying a sense of apocalypticism and dread, punctuating the visuals and making it clear that more horror and fright are on the way!

We then move to the streets of Neo-Tokyo where we meet the main characters of Shotoro Kaneda, the leader of a Bosozoku biker gang, and his buds. They’re up to their usual thing, battling the Clowns (a rival gang) and making a big mess of the streets in the process. Meanwhile, student and civilian protests are taking place not far away and the riot police are out in full force trying to contain them, shooting them with tear gas canisters and beating them with truncheons. In between all this, a man who is clearly a member of some underground cell is running through the streets and trying to stay ahead of the police. With him is a small boy who he appears to be rescuing, and we can tell he’s no ordinary child because his skin is blue! The resistance man is then shot when they run into the riot police’s barricade, and the boy gives us a preview of some freaky powers when he screams and shatters all the windows in the area, sending everybody running. In the crowd, a young girl and an older man are watching, themselves members of this same underground, and become perplexed when they see the blue boy disappear.

We go back to Kaneda and his biker gang, who appear to have routed the Clowns and are now chasing them down. Tetsuo, the obvious runt of the litter, gets seperated as he tries to chase down too Clowns, and ends up running into the blue-skinned boy. A mere second before impact, the boy freaks out again and Tetsuo’s bike explodes, sending him into the pavement. Kaneda and the others show up just in time to see him wounded but not killed, and the blue boy as well who’s appearance shocks them. Military choppers and shadowy figures show up seconds later, with some big mustached Colonel and an older, blue-skinned person leading them. The boy is taken away, the elder one scolding him for trying to get into the outside world where they don’t belong. Tetsuo is taken as well, with Kaneda and the rest unable to help because they are at gunpoint and face down on the asphalt.

This sets off the three intertwining plot elements that make up the movie. One the one hand, we have Kaneda and his friends trying to find Tetsuo, all the while trying to survive in the hostile environment that is Neo-Tokyo. We have the resistance looking to get back into some government facility so they can free these blue-skinned kids – known as the Espers, clearly the subject of experiments and covert activities. And we have the Colonel, who’s running said facility, overseeing the experiments on these individuals, and trying to figure out what to do with Tetsuo. It becomes clear after just a few scenes that his exposure to this small child is changing him, in the psionic sense, and now they must figure out what to do about it. While he presents an interesting phenomena, a normal person changed through accidental exposure, there are hints that this chance encounter could bring disaster.

In between all this, we get numerous snapshots of what life is like in the post-apocalyptic city, and all of it is interesting and awesome. The police are overworked trying to control a population that is beginning to become unruly after the shock and horror of a nuclear holocaust and the push to rebuild. The public school system is clogged with orphans who’s parents died in the war and who have to turn to biker gangs and deviant behavior to express themselves. And behind it all, there is the shadowy government project being run by the Colonel, who is haunted by the visions the blue kids are showing him and a name which might be a person, a phenomena, or both… Akira! At one point, in a scene that is both expository and foreshadowing, we are shown an underground facility where a massive cryogenic unit sits and waits. As they inspect it, the Colonel is reminded of conversations he had with the resident scientist about the children could be the next phase in evolution, how it is frightening, and how he fears for the city. In any case, we see a name on the big cryogenic unit… AKIRA! Whoever or whatever this is, its clear that the blue kids are related, and that the war itself might have had something to do with it.

At about this time, Tetsuo manages to escape from the military facility. He finds his girlfriend, Kaori, steals Kaneda’s bike, and makes plans with her to get out of the city. Unfortunately, some Clowns find them and begin beating the crap out of them. Luckily, Kaneda and his buds were on their tale and manage to intervene, but clearly something’s wrong. In the course of taking his revenge on one of the Clowns, Tetsuo begins to lose it. When they try to stop him, he starts to lose it and says that someday he’ll show all of them (case of foreshadowing here). To make matters worse, he starts experiencing intense migraines and has apocalyptic visions. He sees the city crumbling, his body falling apart, and hears the name Akira ringing like a shrill bell in his mind. And, wouldn’t you know it, the military shows up again and hauls him away! It seems that whatever is happening to Tetsuo is beyond his control, and naturally, his friends are even more determined now to find him and figure out what’s going on.

Paralleling this, we get a scene where one of the government bureaucrats is meeting with the leader of the resistance. The two watch a public protest where a religious cult begins burning TV’s and other “decadent” possessions, calling forth the name of Akira as some sort of messianic prophet and saying that the time for atonement has come. The bureaucrat explains how this is a sign, how the city is saturated and begiinning to rot like “an overripe fruit”, and how Akira is the seed that will soon fall and grow into a new order (clever metaphor). We are still not sure who or what Akira is at this point, but its clear that whoever or whatever it is, everyone is looking to it for deliverance. The resistance and their bureaucratic ally want it to pave the way to the future, the government wants to keep it under wraps, and the people on the streets see it as the name of the messiah. Real cool! From all of this, we see that at all levels of society, the name Akira is a secretive, powerful, and dangerous thing.

Along the way, Kaneda finds out about the resistance and begins making common cause with them. This begins when he notices that a particular young woman named Kei, whom he is obviously infatuated with, has a way of showing up repeatedly wherever and whenever shit is going down. At first, he was just trying to nail her; but in time, he comes to realize that she is part of an underground cell that is looking to expose a government secret, the same one that Tetsuo is now part of. They agree that they can help each other, mainly because she and her friends can get inside the facility and she is sympathetic with Kaneda’s desire to save his friend. Eventually, they succeed, but their attempt at a rescue coincides with another, scarier development.

In the facility, Tetsuo is still changing, and the process is getting beyond all control. His psionic abilities are reaching dangerous proportions, and he wants answers! He has come to see that there are others like him (the Espers), which happens after a psychedelic episode where the children enter his room in the guises of childhood toys and transform them into nightmarish creatures that try to devour him. It’s not quite clear why they do this, perhaps they grew scared of him and wanted to put him in his place. It is clear to them from their visions of a catastrophic future that Tetsuo is a threat, so perhaps this was their way of telling him to behave. In any case, this scene is nothing short of art! At once nightmarish, hallucinogenic and psychedlic, it manages to intrigue, creep out and terrify, in that order. And, ironically but fittingly, it ends when Tetsuo accidentally cuts himself and the children are terrified by the site blood and flee. However, Tetsuo is now angry and abundantly aware that he is not alone. He sees in his mind’s eye where the Esper’s nursery is, and sets out to find it, them, and the answers he seeks.

In the process, a number of attendees and guards try to stop him, but he makes short work of them all. Yes, Tetsuo has come to understand that whatever is changing him has given him some freaky powers, including the power to kill with a simple thought. As he walks along the hallway, he kills numerous people in sick and ugly ways, a clear indication of his descent into madness and a preview of what’s to come. Once he reaches the blue kids’ nursery, they begin fighting it out with their crazy mind powers, and the effects used to illustrate this are not just cool, they’re crazy! One really gets the sense of the psychic and psychotic; music, effects and dialogue all coming together to intrigue and scare the viewer! In the course of all this, Tetsuo gleams a name from their minds. Seems their is another like them, someone who is even more powerful than the Espers and Tetsuo combined. Tetsuo wants to find this person, this… Akira! He even manages to get the location from their minds before they are interrupted.

That interruption comes in the form of Kaneda and Kei who have successfully broken in amidst the chaos. They have a brief rendezvous, but Kaneda’s attempts to get Tetsuo to leave with them fail. Seems Tetsuo thinks he’s beyond Kaneda’s help now, and that he’s in charge and ready to show him what’s what, as promised earlier. The Colonel and more men enter and attempt to stop Tetsuo, but he kills even more people, destroys the nursery, and flies from the facility (much to his own surprise). Seems his body is now flying him on autopilot and taking him out into the city to find the last known location of the fabled Akira. The Colonel and his troops are then forced to declare martial law, in part because of Tetsuo’s escape, but also because the government has decided that he is not fit to run the program anymore and try to arrest him. After a brief scene where some bureaucrats show up and a minor gunfight ensues, the Colonel orders his troops to arrest all members of the government and get their asses to where Tetsuo is heading! He means business now!

Meanwhile, Kaneda and Kei have been arrested and stuck in a cell. Here,Kei begins to explain exactly what they think Akira represents. In a word: evolution! Essentially, Kei says that the power that has driven single cell organisms and reptiles to evolve into spaceship-making, atom-splitting humans is still at work. Harnessed in the human genome is a ton of energy that is just waiting to manifest itself in the form of freaky powers, the kind that Tetsuo and the Espers now demonstrate. Kei begins to become distant as it is made clear that one of the Espers, the young girl, is speaking through her. She explains that in the past, this process went horribly wrong, but someday soon, it would become a reality and their kind would exist freely. Kaneda is totally lost, but that doesn’t matter for long. Kei snaps out of her dream-like puppet state and reveals that the door to their cell is now open. Seems the Espers are pulling strings to make sure the two of them get out.

With the help of voiceover, they even say that they plan on using the girl to stop Testuo. And they don’t make it far before they put that plan into action. After meeting up with Kai, another member of the biker gang, Kaneda is told that a rampaging Tetsuo killed one of other members. He’s pissed, but is made even more pissed when the Espers show up and make Kei come with her. She walks away (on water, no less), and leaves Kaneda fuming angrily over how helpless he feels. Caught between a friend who’s gone rogue and some freaky kids who are using his would-be girlfriend for their own purposes, all the while caught up in plot he can’t begin to understand, he decides to set out on his own to find Tetsuo and end him!

Speaking of which, we meet up with Tetsuo next and see that he’s been stalking the streets and killing anyone who gets in his way, all the while seeking the other secret facility where, as we saw earlier, Akira is housed. This is without a doubt one of the best parts of the movie, as the street people, seeing some psionic boy in a red cape (yep, he fashions himself a cape!) become convinced that Tetsuo is Akira and start following him like a messiah. They all die, naturally, as Tetsuo’s is forced to fight his way through soldiers and his powers cause untold amounts of collateral damage. When he finally reaches the facility, just outside the uncompleted Olympic Stadium (bit of a side story to that one), he runs into Kei again and they fight. Not so much “they”, more like the Espers fight Tetsuo through her, but of course he beats them/her and breaks into the facility anyway. As soon as he cracks open the cryogenic seals that hold Akira, the Colonel arrived outside the stadium and begins to fill him in via a megaphone.

We then get the big moment of truth: turns out the facility was holding the remains of a boy, a boy named Akira. He is what caused Tokyo’s annihilation in 1988, as he was an evolutionary curiosity that evolved beyond anyone’s control. After the explosion, which started WWIII since everyone thought Tokyo was under nuclear attack, his remains were sealed away for future study. That’s it, that’s all! No mind-blowing conspiracy, no earth-shattering answers, just a bunch of test tubes and tissue samples in formaldehyde. And as for the conspiracy, that was just the government trying to keep the truth of Akira under wraps so they could study it in the hopes of preventing the same thing from happening again. Hence why they’ve been holding the Espers in a sealed location, seems they were Akira’s fellow potentates who survived the obliteration.

Tetsuo is obviously phased and disappointed, but he’s quickly snapped out of it with the arrival of Kaneda. The two get into it as Kaneda tries to talk him down, but a fight quickly ensues with Kaneda employing a captured laser gun and Tetsuo using his freaky powers. The government jumps in and tries to kill Tetsuo with their orbital laser satellite, but this only manages to critically injure Tetsuo by blowing off his arm. The kid proves beyond their control again, and flies into orbit where he takes over the satellite and then crashes it. This, however, gives Kaneda, Kei, and Kai a chance to escape.

A lull follows as the Colonel and his forces lick their wounds, Tetsuo fashions a new arm out of random machine parts, and Kaneda, Kei, and Kai recharge the laser gun and keep each other company. Some time later, they all meet up inside the stadium, where Tetsuo has placed the remains of Akira on a sort of shrine and is sitting in the chair he has fashioned into a sort of throne. Symbolism! The Colonel urges Tetsuo to come home, but he refuses. He is once again losing control and its beginning to show in his body, which is sprouting amorphous blob-like appendages! He is also losing his mind, at once amused and in terrible pain over what’s happening all around him. The Espers show up and begin praying to the remains of Akira, hoping to get some kind of instruction or deliverance. Seems they too revere him since he was the first to undergo what they are experiencing now.

Tetsuo’s girlfriend Kaori is also drawn to the stadium, but she soon dies as Tetsuo’s loses all control over his body and it consumes her. Kaneda returns, shooting his laser and trying to bring Tetsuo down, but the attempts appear to be in vain. Even Tetsuo is being killed by his own abilities now and there doesn’t appear to be any way to stop it. And the scientists watching it all are stunned when the queer instruments they have that measure psionic abilities go off the charts and begin to show the “Akira pattern”. And then, in a blinding burst of revelation (destructive, apocalyptic, revelation!) Akira appears to the Espers! His white light, much as it did at the beginning, starts consuming the stadium and Tetsuo’s amorphous body. Kaneda is willing to risk his own life to pull Tetsuo from the expanding ball of light, but the Espers decide they will take Tetsuo with them and save Kaneda by sacrificing themselves. Essentially, they are going into the light, which means either death, transcendence, or a little of both. Kaneda, Kei, and everyone else, will be sent back in the process so they can live on.

However, Kaneda is still inside the light for a moment and experiences what can only be described as a taste of transcendence, or possibly the afterlife. It is a totally mind-blowing scene, biggest one of the movie, as he watches entire city blocks get mangled in the light, catches glimpses from their and Tetsuo’s life, and hears the Espers speaking to him about the meaning of it all. He gets a chance to say good-bye to his friend, who appears before him as a blinding ball of light, and sees moments of their lives together. He then wakes up next to Kei, safe and sound. Might sound cheesy, but trust me, its sad, meaningful, and above all, awesome to behold. All the more so because you’re not being told what’s happening, you gotta figure it out on your own. The vivid imagery and passing bits of explanation paint a picture, but you’re left pondering what it means.

Meanwhile, the city is once again in ruins, even though Kei, Kai and Kaneda survived. The Colonel has also survived, having found shelter in a nearby tunnel when the apocalyptic light show began. Clearly, they are the survivors of this new apocalypse, and it is to them that the responsibility to rebuild once more falls. The Espers end things by reiterating their final message, how things are changing, and though the world may not be ready, someday what they have will become a reality. “It has already begun…” they say at the end. By it, of course, they mean the next leap in human evolution, where we will evolve beyond flesh and blood bodies and become unrestrained forces of pure consciousness, with all kinds of freaky psionic abilities! Yes, the day will come when we shall all be… Akira!

(Synopsis—>)
Okay, I’m feeling mind-blown just recounting all this. Like I said before, this movie did things right, relying on a sort of show-don’t-tell philosophy, psychedelic and existential themes, and an attention to detail that is unsurpassed. From a technical standpoint, there was also the stunning visual effects and a great combination of music, sound and visuals to punctuate the plot and dialogue. But the thing I liked most was the depth and development shown by the plot and thematic elements of the story. For example, the clear religious themes: First off, there was the coming of the messiah and the End of Days. There was also the Garden of Eden or Deluge Myth that was present at the end. Lastly, there is the Fall. All of these were present at one time or another, the first being a recurring theme while the others became clear closer to the end. The fascinating and gritty use of them all was awesome, terrifying and hugely intriguing.

Then, of course, there was the plot. You’d think that with the archetypal and religious tones that were at work, you’d get some cliches or cardboard cut-out characters. But, interestingly enough, the characters were pretty damn realistic throughout. They are at once cynical, greedy, scared, brutal, and sympathetic, no one a crystal-clear good guy or bad guy. Whether it was the overwrought bureaucrats, the cautious and troubled Colonel, the street toughs who see each other as a family, the fallen Tetsuo or the romantic scientists, every character felt genuine and justifiable. Just like real people, everyone is motivated by their own combination of things, no one is perfect, and everyone just wants to do what they think is right. That, plus the fact that the story doesn’t end happily, but with some hope, was also very realistic. In the event that human beings actually began manifesting psionic powers, we can expect that the results would be frightening and probably disastrous. And in all likelihood, it would take a few disasters before humanity found a way to control it or live with it.

That being said, the movie could also be a bit daunting at times. Towards the end, the action sequences and dialogue did get a little drawn out and could even feel emotionally taxing. Like with a lot of movies of its kind, there were moments where I was just like “enough death and destruction! Get on with it, already!” But for the most part, this is effective in that it conveys the right feel and attitude. After all, death, destruction and the apocalypse are not neat and tidy things. They are painful, demoralizing and downright brutal! One would expect scenes or total destruction and terrible strife to be sad and terrible, so I can only say that Katsohiro’s direction was realistic in that respect and in keeping with the overall tone of the movie. Speaking of which, the movie also showed some very obvious insight into the mentality of destruction and holocaust. All throughout the movie, there is a sense of shock and horror at work, and it comes out in full force at the end. But unlike your average disaster movie, the destruction in Akira wasn’t some cheap attempt at action-porn, it was the real deal!

And you really get the sense that this speaks directly to a sense of cultural experience, Japan being a nation that has not only experienced earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes regularly in the course of its history, but is also the only country on the planet that has experienced the horrors of a nuclear attack. When one sees the blast at the beginning, the flashing, cooling orbital view, and then the big, black crater, one immediately thinks of Hiroshima, and not just the physical impact but the terrible psychological toll it took as well. All the scenes involving the orphaned kids, the apocalyptic dreams, the post-war reconstruction; you really feel like Katsohiro was relying on the real-life experiences of those who had been there.

Oh, and one final note: I’ve since seen two versions of the movie, the original VHS release that was available back in the 90’s, and a more recent version which was clearly dubbed in Japan. The Japanese dubbed one is actually more faithful to the original dialogue, but my advice would be to get the version that was dubbed by Hollywood studios. The translation was better, and the dialogue and voices more effective and less cheesy. Don’t know what it is about Japanese voice actors, but the men sound too gruff and the ladies too high-pitched! Also, in what I am assuming was the original Japanese script, the dialogue was also remarkably less subtle. If you can see both versions and compare for yourselves, you’ll see what I mean.

But other than that, this movie is an enduring classic for me. Its appeal is cultish, its style awesome, and its effects stunning even though they are over twenty years old by now. I look forward to the live-action American remake of this movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and set for release sometime in the next year, or possibly 2013. One has to wonder how they will spin things and if they plan on sticking to the grit and realism of the original. I sincerely hope so, otherwise I might have to give it a scathing review!

AKIRA
Entertainment Value: 8/10
Plot: 9/10
Direction: 10/10 (Yo!)
Total: 9/10

Stories by Williams

Classic sci-fi books, reviews, and the best of from a dedicated fan and author!

Tag: post-apocalyptic

Crashland – Chapter 2

28 Days Later…

T2!

Da Terminator!

AKIRA!

Stories by Williams

Classic sci-fi books, reviews, and the best of from a dedicated fan and author!

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