I watched Collateral Damage last night and was just stunned—STUNNED I tell you—at just how wooden Schwarzensteroid’s performance was. Obviously I haven’t seen a Schwarzenvehikle for a while. Or, more accurately, until he decided to run for Schwarzenguvenur of Schwarzenkalifornja, I’d always accepted his roles in movies the only one way one can accept them: by basically ignoring them; by consuming them as intended: as Schwarzenvakuums around which the actual action of a film takes place. Schwarzenegger isn’t an actor; he’s an armature to hang a plot and an FX budget on.
Never was this more plain to me than in Collateral Damage. Maybe it’s just that I never really paid much attention to him before his recent bizarre Warholian 15-minutes of metafame, or maybe he’s subject—despite the nearly lifelike latex visage that appears in public nowadays—to the same ravages of age that all of us are. But the dude can barely move!
Watch CD and notice that every scene that includes Schwarzenboulder is edited in quick, jerky cuts: he never has to perform any sustained movement. The few exceptions—scenes wherein he’s running, for example—were framed to deemphasize his nearly crippled state: he runs straight toward the camera, for example, so we can’t see that he’s making very little lateral progress; or he runs away from the camera, so we can’t see that it’s actually a stunt Schwarzendoppleganger.
Every closeup reaction shot is just PAINfully choreographed and over rehearsed; each turn of his head and goggle of his eyes is isolated and exaggerated. BOOM of explosion; cut to Scharzenkloseup: labored swing of the head; cut to somewhere, ANYwhere else.
Can anyone help me understand how he ever became such a big star?
He certainly isn’t going to be in contention for an oscar any time soon, but he does have a couple of things going for him;
Terminator 2. In addition to being a classic sci-fi/action movie, could anybody really see someone else in his role?
He comes across as a nice guy in interviews and so forth. Doesn’t get pissed off when people mangle his name or immitate his accent so he comes across as not taking himself too seriously.
Zackly. And any decent Julia Roberts or Tom Cruise vehicle: establishing closeups to get the producers’ money’s worth, then back to the other actors, the real actors, to carry the actual movie.
My answer to “Arnold Schwarzenegger is the greatest actor since . . .” – Ronald Reagon
Reason for above answer is look at all the parallels. Both pretty bad actors but popular nonetheless, political aspirations, not as bright in the brains department as people perceive them to be.
