The James Cameron movies: Rank 'em!

OK, I admit I wasn't thrilled with the Avatar trailer (and the fact that it was on TV every 15 minutes didn't help), but there's so much buzz around it that I think I gotta see it, and in 3-D. Plus James Cameron's track record and limited output makes practically every film a milestone. And that brings up the next question: What's your favorite James Cameron film? (I'm not going to count documentaries like Ghosts of the Abyss.)  My personal picks follow.  --David

1. The Terminator: Still one of my favorite movies, with terrific action set-pieces and plenty of scares. (It needs a new Blu-ray release, though.)  The franchise has sagged over the years, but I did like The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day: A big-time action movie with groundbreaking special effects--I just don't find myself rewatching it as often as the first movie.
3. Aliens: A thrilling movie that's often called the best sequel of all-time (the candidates are few), but very different from the original.  I myself prefer the horror-suspense vibe of Alien, but I understand the love for #2.
4. Titanic: Cameron Confession #1: Even though I'm not a girl, I like Titanic.  Yeah, I'll fast-forward through parts, but it's beautifully put together.
5. True Lies: A fun film, but not one I feel compelled to rewatch often.
6. The Abyss: Cameron Confession #2: I've never seen it!  I will someday, but all the impressions I've gotten are that it's, er, a bit slow-moving so it isn't high on my list.
7. Piranha II: I haven't seen this one either but I don't feel any guilt about it.

Comments

[Iberostar on December 20, 2009 at 06:01 AM]

My favorites are:
1. Aliens - I watch it all the time while I paint.
2. Terminator 2: Judgment day - Sarah Conner rocks! I love when she arms the gun (in the steel plant) with one hand.
3. Aliens - love it - watch it a lot too, but love Bill Paxton's "Why don't you put HER in charge?"

Hated Titanic - watched it once. Liked the ship that's it.
Abyss - watched it two times - slow and I wanted more of the water forming "who knows what they are?"

Avatar surpasses every movie I've ever seen. I saw the first showing. It makes you believe you are IN the movie. He created a whole world, creatures that were wild, a culture, a language, birds, plants - all in detail that blows your mind. I saw the movie with about 100 college kids who were loud before the movie, but during the movie - you could hear a pin drop - everyone was so absorbed in the movie. They burst out in applause after the movie. We all did.

[wolfwalker on December 20, 2009 at 06:29 AM]

The Abyss is definitely slow-moving. Lots of tension, lots of development, not much in the way of action. It's part psychological thriller and part SF. To enjoy the psych-thriller part you have to be interested in human psychology; to enjoy the SF part you have to be really into the wonders of First Contact with an Alien Intelligence.

Oh, and if you ever do decide to watch it, make sure you watch the 'director's cut.' The initial version came out too long, and Cameron had to cut about 20-25 minutes for the theatrical version, including much of what made the ending make sense. The director's cut works much better.

[Joe on December 20, 2009 at 06:32 AM]

1) Aliens-it IS the best sequel ever made. Stands on its own, builds on the past, Hicks, Hudson, Vasquez, great characters, great action, great lines.
2) Terminator-Ar-nuhld acts like he always does, but since this time he's a robot, it's great! Heck, he even runs out of ammunition. It's a great low(er) budget film.
3) Terminator 2-Meh, it's OK...I don't like T1 as the "Good guy"...felt Arnold was trying to re-shape his image and didn't want to be the bad guy no more...well, that's what he was best at at. The dream sequence of the nuclear attack on LA was stunning.
4) Anything else is pretty *Blech* I don't care...sorry. If I had to rate a movie that came after Aliens, but was LINKED to Aliens I'd chose Near Dark, with Goldstein (Vasquez), Paxton (Hudson), and Henriksen (Bishop) as roving vampires in the late 20th C. That movie beats the Abysss, and the Abysss beats any of the others...the Titanic-hey the boats sinks....True Lies-if you like Jamie Lee Curtis and you haven't had your fill of Arnold, OK...and Avatar sounds AWFUL, no plot, no rational action, even if the Marines are the bad guys how about TRYING to make them think, and very little character, just 300 million in CGI effects...if all you want is a pretty picture see Avatar, but if all you want is a pretty picture see Barry Lyndon, instead, because at least as a movie there's a complete package of character, story, dialogue, and development, rather than 300 million in leftist agit-prop that has little itelligence, or soul.

[EMD on December 20, 2009 at 06:45 AM]

Kathryn Bigelow directed Near Dark. She's also the director of this year's Oscar contender The Hurt Locker.

[a. non on December 20, 2009 at 07:07 AM]

Best sequel ever made? Did no one see Godfather II?

[Calvin Dodge on December 20, 2009 at 07:15 AM]

1) True Lies - it's my favorite movie (not just "favorite Cameron movie"). For its action, humor, and the message of marital reconciliation (this 53-year-old guy cries every time he sees Harry pulling Helen from the runaway limo)
2) The Abyss (director's cut). BTW, I strongly recommend Orson Scott Card's novelization for the characters' backstories (which he imparted to the actors when he was on the movie set) and subtleties which guys like me missed during the movie.
3) T2
4) The Terminator
5) Aliens
6) Titanic

I didn't put "Strange Days" on the list because one viewing was enough - I don't want anyone to waste 2 hours of their life watching it because they thought I was somehow recommending it.

[Koblog on December 20, 2009 at 07:56 AM]

True Lies was Cameron's most important film on two fronts.

One, it was James Bond with family values. Arnold's character loves his family and his country; was jealous for his wife, worried about his daughter and would die for his country.

The look on his daughter's face when Arnold rescued her with the Harrier was priceless. Seeing her sudden, new respect him was a great moment. The touching and hilarious subplots of Arnold dealing with what he thought was an unfaithful wife added to the great action scenes and augmented the standard "save the country from nuclear destruction" main plot.

Two, and more importantly, True Lies was the last big movie to mock Muslim Jihadists. They were buffoons, and properly so. Mockery is a very powerful weapon.

In 1994 we laughed at Muslim nuclear terrorists and didn't know a Sunni from a Shia. After their successful and very effective attack in 2001 on New York and Washington DC, our brave and edgy Hollywood elites now cower before the mosque and submit their scripts to CAIR for approval.

Hollywood will never cast Muslims as villains again.

Even Jack Bauer's "24" has Muslims as misunderstood victims of today's only allowable Hollywood bad guys: Christians, American capitalists and the US military.

Being an approval-seeking liberal, True Lies was an anomaly. Cameron definitely made a mistake to cast Muslims as he did in True Lies and will never do so again.

In 1989's The Abyss, the bad guy was the US Military, personified by Michael Biehn. By 1997, Cameron was back to form in Titanic, showing us the poor are all innocent and good, the rich capitalists are evil and self-serving and women are held captive by rich white men.

Avatar continues to show us Cameron's and Hollywood's heart: America is the bad guy. America is the imperialist evil, screwing the world's poor and, if given the chance, even the galaxy's poor.

True Lies was pro-America and pro-family...a happy accident never to be repeated.

[Rusty Bill on December 20, 2009 at 08:24 AM]

True Lies: see koblog's comments above

The Abyss: Not all the military were bad guys, and that's nothing new anyway - see "Seven Days in May".

Terminator/T2: Fun

Aliens: Military as good guys, making difficult choices. Some work, some don't.

Titanic: I gave up on "based on real events" movies long ago, since most filmmakers seem obsessed with showcasing their stars and/or special effects, usually at the expense of any relationship of the movie to the facts. Anybody remember that horrid "Pearl Harbor" movie from a few years ago? I never saw it; the reviews were enough to make me steer clear. I'd rather rewatch "Tora! Tora! Tora!"

[wallydog on December 20, 2009 at 09:05 AM]

1. True Lies - Great story, great action, very funny and easily Cameron's most developed characters. I want a sequel.

2. The Terminator - One of the top two or three action movies ever made.

3. Aliens - Excellent. Just a couple of movies behind Terminator.

4. Terminator 2 - A very good movie, but not up there with the original.

5. Avatar - Some very good stuff, but some pretty slow stuff too.

6. The Abyss - Again some very good stuff (the sequence when the crane is falling towards the submerged station is superb) but also some slow stuff. And a dumb ending.

7. Titanic - A big turd, enlivened briefly by Kate Winslet's boobs.

I've never seen Piranha II.

[Snorri Godhi on December 20, 2009 at 09:08 AM]

Obviously, I'll rank only the movies that I have seen.

T1, T2, True Lies: all great; if forced to choose, I'd rank T2 the highest because I never get tired of the action scenes. But Koblog above makes some very good points about True Lies, and I had great fun telling the jokes of True Lies to friends who had not yet seen it.

Aliens: sadly, I have seen it only on TV. I'd say almost great.

Titanic: the less said about it, the better.

[wolfwalker on December 20, 2009 at 09:37 AM]

Snorri, do you mean you've only seen _Aliens_ on a small screen, or do you mean you've only seen the broadcast version, with commercial breaks, edited for content and running time and full-screen?

I think I'm safe in saying that if you've only seen a chopped-up network version, you haven't really seen the movie. Which could be said for any movie, but _Aliens_ is an exceptional example. The thing that I remember most about _Aliens_ is the unbelievable intensity, and a commercial break every 12 minutes completely ruins that.

[Mark on December 20, 2009 at 09:38 AM]

I really like Abyss. I'm not sure I like it better than Terminator 2 or Aliens, but I love the underwater setting, especially since so much of the movie was shot underwater, instead of using special effects to simulate it.

[boomer on December 20, 2009 at 10:22 AM]

Not to speak ill of Aliens, which I truly enjoyed. In my perhaps unhumble opinion the best sequel ever made was Godfather II.

[Peter Buxton on December 20, 2009 at 11:40 AM]

Your list is terribly off-kilter!

Titanic is simply fantastic whenever we're not focused on Jack and Diane (or Rose or... whoever); the mighty ship and the great number of passengers in themselves are deeply moving. As for Jack and Diane, this movie was a clear hatchet job by Cameron and would have been better served by bringing in a Gore Vidal, who was pro-patrician.

True Lies has great performances by Tom Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis, a great cameo by Charlton Heston and a great marital storyline. A bit underwritten, but Cameron is clearly a movie maker, not a writer.

[Snorri Godhi on December 20, 2009 at 11:51 AM]

Wolfwalker: I am sorry, but it's been almost 20 years since I saw Aliens on TV, hence all what I can say is that I agree with you: I haven't really seen the movie. Actually, no, I can say another thing: when some of my friends said that Aliens was as disappointing as a typical sequel, I defended it with a passion.

[Travis on December 20, 2009 at 12:24 PM]

Didn't anybody like Strange Days? An unusual plot, and Cameron actually made Juliet Lewis a hottie in it(no easy feat of engineering there)

[Jack Okie on December 20, 2009 at 12:27 PM]

Snorri Godhi:

You should really rent Aliens and watch it on the biggest screen you can find. You'll be glad you did.

[Level3 on December 20, 2009 at 04:50 PM]

I only own 2 of JC's flicks. The ones with repeatability.
Aliens and True Lies

True Lies is the ultimate 90's-style action moive. Ah-nuld+hot chicks+great action+laugh-out-loud humor+Charelton Heston cameo+hi tech+blatantly obvious stunt doubles+Harrier jump jet+the B plot (the fake spy) that is even better than the A plot (silly but dangerously clever terrorists), a nuclear bomb that actually goes off, you can't list all the good elements.
But basically if some committee just said "What cool things do guys like in action movies?" and then put EVERYTHING on that list into the movie. Only JC could pull it off without it becoming a complete pile of shit. Then he actually throws in the family element to give it heart, which guys won't admit wanting, but loved to see.

Don't want a sequel, today's Hollywood would surely ruin the whole concept, making Omega Sector some kind of puppet of the white, male, evil corporate villain who wants to somehow make money by poisoning children (yes, this is how Hollywood thinks), and the Arnolds work as a team to fight it with the help of the homeless, or giant Smurfs.

Aliens is just a given. It is the ultimate SF action movie.

Both movies owe their repeatability (and quotability) to Bill Paxton's comedy roles.

[Gerard on December 20, 2009 at 06:27 PM]

The Abyss knocked my socks off when I first saw it. You have to see it in the movies - Cameron creates a crushing sense of dread, suffocation and claustrophobia - the scene of Ed Harris swimming from one airlock to another will have you holding your own breath. Also, the effect of the water coming alive was one of the first CGI effects, and remains one of the best. I prefer the shorter theatrical cut - it has less of the ridiculous and boring alien peacemaker stuff at the end.

Favourite quote from Aliens (Bill Paxton): 'Cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!!'

[Al on December 20, 2009 at 09:24 PM]

Travis: Heh. Not to mention that it jump-started my strange obsession with Brigitte Bako. (And I am referring to her looks, not her fate; I'm not *that* strange.)

[sensations on October 29, 2010 at 12:35 AM]

OK, I admit I wasn't thrilled with the Avatar trailer (and the fact that it was on TV every 15 minutes didn't help), but there's so much buzz around it that I think I gotta see it, and in 3-D.

[sensations on October 29, 2010 at 12:36 AM]

OK, I admit I wasn't thrilled with the Avatar trailer (and the fact that it was on TV every 15 minutes didn't help), but there's so much buzz around it that I think I gotta see it, and in 3-D.

[xiao on November 15, 2010 at 05:32 PM]

I admit I wasn't thrilled with the Avatar trailer