As a child, James Cameron did not want to play basketball with other children: his passion was to build things that would fly or, conversely, sink. Explore the unknown, surprise yourself, surpass yourself. Always controversial but (almost) always right, James Cameron was self-taught from the start. So much so that he quit his job as a trucker after watching ‘Star wars’ and decided to go into film after reading many books about it but not having taught a single class in college.
Now, nine fiction films (and two terrific documentaries that we didn’t include in the list) later, it’s time to look back and sort everything that has come out of Cameron’s mind. It is not an easy task, surely someone will get angry, but remember: It is a personal list ordered in a subjective way, it does not pass judgment on anything nor will it decide the future of any saga. Are you ready for the trip of your life?
9) ‘Piranha II: Vampires of the Sea’
Direction: James Cameron and Ovid G. Assonitis Distribution: Lance Henriksen, Steve Marachuk, Tricia O’Neil, Leslie Graves, Ricky Paull Goldin, Ted Richert
James Cameron got his start in film working as a visual effects specialist and production designer for B-movie maestro Roger Corman. In fact, when he signed for ‘Piranha 2’ he did it as director of its visual effects, but the original director, Miller Drake, left in anger with the producer Ovidio G. Assonitis, and our hero managed to get the long-awaited chair. But the production was far from a smooth ride: By all accounts, he was fired and rehired time and time again, he had no control over the final cut and we will never know how much he directed and how much Assonitis.
In fact, Cameron denied for years that he was the director of this sequel which isn’t anywhere near as good as Joe Dante’s original. All in all, it’s a fun movie with flying piranhas, some gore, and awful performances, partly to blame for a boring script that focuses more on bland characters than on advancing the plot. It’s absurd, it’s idiotic, it’s lousy, but in its own way it’s adorable. If you haven’t seen it, a piece of advice: don’t do it without friends around.
Criticism in Espinof by Sergio Benítez |
8) ‘Avatar: the sense of water’
Address: James Cameron Distribution: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis
‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ is a film that fans of the technical aspect of the first part will love it, because… there is nothing else. Yes, it’s amazing what Cameron and Weta have been able to do by creating a new planet out of nothing, but once the novelty of the underwater world wears off, it stagnates until its last fun hour. I know it has many fans, but even the most recalcitrant will understand that it is not easy to get into these three and a quarter hours of technical prodigy and narrative nothingness.
If the first one was beaten for years for its soft story (and quite shamelessly inspired by other films), the second part does not learn from its mistakes. It is excessively simple to put up with that footage, it lacks interesting characters (fans are put as they are) and it makes cowardly decisions. Whether it makes up for its deficiencies with action and the technical part depends on each viewer. I fully understand that there are those who get angry for putting it between ‘Piranha 2’ and the first ‘Avatar’, but Cameron has put too much effort into something that, for some of us, was not so good. Nobody is perfect!
Criticism in Espinof by Jorge Loser
7) ‘Avatars’
Direction: James Cameron Distribution: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, Giovanni Ribisi
‘Avatar’ is a unique case in the history of cinema: a film that broke box offices around the world but had no cultural impact (not social) some. And it has its reason for being: it is a very nice film to watch but, ultimately, its plot simplicity is its greatest enemy. Technically it’s still impressive (as much as I have personal issues with the design of the leads) and started the 3D craze with the best movie ever made with this gimmick. It is undeniable: Pandora is a true feat per se.
But it’s not enough. If a movie has to rely on a visual trick outside of viewing to wow, it wasn’t wonderful. first. ‘Avatar’ creates a new world out of nothing, uses techniques that had not been mastered until then, perfects the three dimensions… at the service of a plot and characters that do it no good. With everything, it has more depth than its sequel and its novelty effect makes it much more enjoyable.
Criticism in Espinof by Randy Meeks | Available on Disney+
6) ‘Abyss’
Address: James Cameron Distribution: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, JC Quinn, Jimmie Ray Weeks
‘Abyss’ is the opposite of ‘Avatar’: It is a film with very good ideas but destroyed by its rhythm. She has many fans, yes, and she is very good, but in a filmography that is measured by fabulous creations, there always has to be a victim. In my case, it’s this one, which is surprising for her time and manages to give a perfect claustrophobic tone to the story, but she doesn’t end up playing the cards she’s dealt.
In other words: the movie sets you up for a climax that doesn’t exist, and ends up leaving too many questions in limbo. It’s very good, yes, but the viewer ends up mentally exhausted after so much spinning and skidding, and the ending simply doesn’t measure up, blurring the memory of the tape. Still, well worth a review. A somewhat failed James Cameron is still better than most directors in their prime.
Criticism in Espinof by Sergio Benítez
5) ‘Risk lies’
Direction: James Cameron Distribution: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Charlton Heston, Art Malik, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Eliza Dushku
Again, it can be controversial, and I understand that, but I love the James Cameron who doesn’t take himself seriously, avoids bombast and he just wants to have fun throwing things at the camera, putting four little jokes here and there and offering a fairly standard movie, yes, but unspeakably entertaining. it’s a tape hyperbolic, exaggerated, absurd, silly and fully aware of its shortcomings. And for that alone I am already completely in love with her.
James Cameron usually travels the highway of believing himself to be a Hollywood divinity and treating all his films as vehicles for gravity and seriousness. Action with capital letters, to understand each other. Nevertheless, in ‘Risky Lies’ he doesn’t mind being the same as always (no one can deny that the action scenes, including that high end) while letting her hair down. One of Cameron’s most hidden faces, the insignificant joker is here, and it’s a luxury: he doesn’t usually let it show. Just to discover this facet is already worth it, and a lot.
Criticism in Espinof by Sergio Benítez | Available on Disney+
4) ‘Terminator’
Director: James Cameron Distribution: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Rick Rossovich
The film that our director dreamed of while sweating during the filming of ‘Piranha II’ is a sci-fi masterpiece packed with iconic moments and honored time and time again (justly). This is a master-creation exercise on a shoestring budget that shows the best James Cameron pulling gold nuggets out of thin airaccompanied by an Arnold Schwarzenegger who needed this role to show that he was something more than Conan.
The result, one of the best sci-fi action movies ever that he knew how to introduce his own universe and that everyone understood the dynamics of time travel. What not yet everyone imagined is that Cameron still had a cartridge to tell in the history of the T-800. And she go cartridge.
Criticism in Espinof by Sergio Benítez | Available on Prime Video, Filmin and Movistar Plus+
3) ‘Titanic’
Direction: James Cameron Distribution: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bill Paxton
Iconic image maker James Cameron gave it his all on ‘Titanic,’ three and a half hours of epic in which, in the end, the most important thing was its characters, Jack and Rose, their impossible romance, the table that (let’s face it) only fit one person and some unbeatable shots. Even now, Nobody has dared to make another mainstream movie about the ship because everything has been said.
It is a piece of clockwork in which everything works, from the Celine Dion song to the methodical reconstruction of the boat. Beyond the irony with which we adolescents received her at the premiere of she was hiding an absolute marvel that passes in a breath and never fails to give moments to remember. Our hearts could not continue after ‘Titanic’.
Criticism in Espinof by Sergio Benítez | Available in Movistar Plus+
2) ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’
Direction: James Cameron Distribution: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Earl Boen, Joe Morton, S. Epatha Merkerson
If with 6 and a half million James Cameron could make ‘Terminator’, what would he do with 100 million? The answer, in ‘Terminator 2’, a masterpiece of action and science fiction cinema that presented the basic concepts that the saga had left to be remembered decades later: John Connor, the T-1000, the timeline change…
The saga without Cameron fell apart very quickly, but this second part remains as a sample of how to do more and better. The visual effects are impressive even now, the characters are worth remembering and the plot does not stop being exciting at any time, with a very powerful script that at no time lets the viewer loose until a surprising humanistic ending after which many of us sensed that we would never see Schwarzenegger again involved in the cyborg circuits. We believed wrong.
Criticism in Espinof by Alberto Abuín | Available on Prime Video
1) ‘Aliens: the return’
Direction: James Cameron Distribution: Sigourney Weaver, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Carrie Henn, William Hope
The only time that James Cameron has gotten into a saga that was not his was to take the franchise started by Ridley Scott to another level of quality. We have never been more scared with the xenomorphs or more excited with Ripley. The movie is creepier (although it trades terror for action), has a more claustrophobic tone, and is impossible to improve on. ‘Aliens: the return’ is the sublimation of a director always dedicated to the show that avoids going easy to innovate in a sequel that could go directly to copy the original, but decides to go a step further.
The icon creator Cameron is here working at full volume and without brakesespecially in a third act in which he steps on the accelerator and dedicates himself to one of the craziest, most luxurious, charismatic and fabulous shows in cinema, which, on top of that, always navigates in favor of the characters. An authentic masterpiece that marked a before and after not only in the director’s career, but also in the history of the fantastic. For this alone, he deserves to make the ‘Avatar’ he wants. He has earned it.
Criticism in Espinof by Sergio Benítez | Available on Disney+