Linda Hamilton

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Oh wow, it finally happened – for the first time since Terminator 3, the series somehow turned out an instalment that didn’t have substantial shortcomings. Too bad that it had to essentially redo the first film and add legacy characters for show. After the dismal Salvation and dull Genisys, expectations couldn’t have been lower for Dark Fate – and accordingly, the film pretends (again) that everything after the second film hasn’t happened. (Don’t worry – the next film in the series will do the same.) This time, we’re back to basics, as a young woman is chased down by machines, albeit with a few twists – The characters from Terminator 2 have aged and are still around, while the future has changed but a different thread remains. While there are a few new faces here, none can really pretend to become the new face of the series – Mackenzie Grace is particularly bland in a role that should be far more striking. The result is a redo of the first Terminator slathered in legacy sauce, with timelines and various kinds of androids-from-the-future all competing for attention. While well executed by director Tim Miller, the overall impact is similar to Terminator 3: It’s clearly in the same lineage, it doesn’t make any major mistakes… but it still feels like lavishly produced fan fiction rather than an authentic follow-up. Having both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reprise their roles certainly reinforces this impression of the series being unable to let go. But that’s kind of baked into the very idea of continuing this series – as long as the commercial imperative is there, Skynet will be rebuilt, replaced or redone and other robots will be sent back in time to target other humans. There’s a Sisyphus-like exasperation built into every new film in the series and IT WILL NEVER END.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Children of the Corn (1984)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On Cable TV, March 2020) Blending some folk horror with “kids are evil” old narrative chestnuts, Children of the Corn ends up being somewhat of a mixed bag. The premise, not uninteresting, has a couple accidentally stopping in a small town where all the adults have been killed by children in a pagan crop-saving ritual. The usual shenanigans follow, with the adult protagonists being hounded by the killer kids and fighting back. It’s all executed in standard 1980s-horror-movie fashion, which may (or not) strike a chord with those who like horror films of the era. It does have its assets: It’s impossible not to like 1984-vintage Linda Hamilton, obviously, but the film around her isn’t quite so interesting. Those who know Children of the Corn’s production history will tell you all about how Stephen King wrote a screenplay adapting his own story, only for the screenplay to be thrown in the garbage by the film’s producers, who then went on to do their own thing with the premise. As such, there’s no attempt at cinematic excellence or respectability here: it’s a straight-up genre exercise, made to make a buck with the era’s undiscerning theatrical audiences. There have been many sequels (8) and remakes (2) to Children of the Corn, almost all of them intended for the home video or streaming market—not that the sins of the children should be inflicted upon the forbears, except as a hint toward how compelling the premise could be for other filmmakers.

Mr. Destiny (1990)

Mr. Destiny (1990)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, May 2019) There’s a surprisingly strong subgenre of movies exploring what it would be like to rewrite your own history and see the outcomes of different choices. From the angels-driven plot of It’s a Wonderful Life to the more recent examples justified by quantum mechanics mumbo-jumbo, you can see the appeal of the plot device in order to deliver a statement on the human condition. But it’s the execution more than the premise that will determine the impact of the film, as Mr. Destiny clearly suggests. Clearly made for a mass audience, the film’s hackneyed approach to alternate realities for our everyman protagonist isn’t particularly impressive, nor is its cavalier approach to respecting the integrity of the parallel timeline (helpfully pointed out by the magical character, asking our protagonist if he isn’t behaving reprehensibly by wooing another woman than his now-wife). Moral issues aside (and it’s tough to put them aside, because they are significant and do lessen the impact of the lesson the film think it’s teaching us) Mr. Destiny’s biggest problem is the complete and unvarying predictability of the result as it goes through the expected paces. It doesn’t help that two of the headliners are Jim Belushi and Jon Lovitz, two actors who are obnoxious on their best days and actively irritating on all others. More fortunately, Linda Hamilton and Rene Russo are sights to behold, but they’re not quite enough to make the film interesting—and their place in the plot, as mere prizes to be juggled by the white male protagonist having a not-even-mid-life crisis, betrays some ugly scripting issues. Michael Caine is perhaps the only likable character, but he comes across as ineffectually pointing out basic problems caused by the protagonist’s selfishness before it doesn’t matter and we get out of the dream sequence anyway. There are some far better movies tackling more or less the same issues out there—there’s no need to even watch Mr. Destiny.

Dante’s Peak (1997)

Dante’s Peak (1997)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second Viewing, On DVD, September 2016) I remember seeing Dante’s Peak in theatres and being quite a bit impressed at the special effects, town destruction and convincing re-creation of a major volcanic eruption. (I also had a bit of a crush on Linda Hamilton, so that helped.) Nearly twenty years later, given the constant evolution of CGI, would the film hold up? As it turns out, the special effects mostly do … but the overall pacing doesn’t hold up as well. Faithfully following the disaster-movie template, Dante’s Peak does struggle to find something to do in-between its spectacular (if depressing) opening sequence and the final all-out volcanic destruction of a small northwestern town. Pierce Brosnan is cool and capable as the volcanologist crying wolf, while Hamilton is credible as the small-town mayor listening to him, but the script doesn’t quite know how to create attachment to the smaller characters or keep up the tension beyond small-town drama mechanics first well-worn in Jaws. Once the volcano erupts, though, things improve sharply. The practical effects used to simulate the destruction of the town still look relatively good (even though we’ve grown accustomed to the all-out chaos made possible with CGI) and the sweeping shots of a town being buried under ash do carry a certain majesty. Director Roger Donaldson is most in his element when showcasing natural mayhem, and sequences such as the bridge passage are as good as Dante’s Peak ever gets. The ending is a bit more intense and claustrophobic than I remembered (thankfully quickly moving on to the coda) and if the film doesn’t quite hold up as a complete success, it’s still good enough to make audiences happy, especially if they can muster a bit of nostalgia for mid-nineties catastrophe films.

The Terminator (1984)

The Terminator (1984)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second viewing, On DVD, June 2003) Once you see beyond a few dated special-effects shots, this movie holds up amazingly well almost two decades later. This first instalment in the series looks good for its low budget and presents, almost in a nutshell, all the ideas that would later pop up in the sequel. Arnold Schwarzenegger looks too young (and has too much hair), but ably demonstrates his star qualities in a role that seems almost custom-built for his (limited) talents. Linda Hamilton is adorable as the fluffy Sarah Connor and the eighties setting now seems almost emblematic rather than dated. The Special Edition DVD presents plenty of extras, including fascinating deleted scenes (further showing the way to the second film) and a revealing look behind the scenes of Cameron’s “true” first film. We may be tempted to see this film merely as the first volume of a series but it’s actually quite good as a standalone film of the era.