Arnold Schwarzenegger turns 70 today.
Austrian-American actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turns 70 today, has been too wooden an actor to be called a good artiste. But he translated this woodenness into solid stolidity on the big screen with the hunky characters he usually played. And that brings us into typecasting. With a body most men can only dream of and a visage thoroughly devoid of expression, Arnold Schwarzenegger was almost asking to be typecast. And he was. He was almost always placed in the shoes of a overpowered brute with little overt sentiment, if any. We hardly see him being an everyday guy in any movie. It was to his credit that he avoided his characters from becoming too one-dimensional. Let’s have a look at his top five best performances.
1. Conan the Barbarian
Before Conan the Barbarian, Arnold Schwarzenegger was known as a man who has ‘such a great’ body and little else. This film was his break and he made most of it. Watching the film makes it seem like Arnold was absolutely enjoying the role. It was a typical sword and sorcery film and it was a delight to see Arnold’s Conan cutting through his enemies like a well-sharpened knife cuts through cheese. Conan the Barbarian was Arnold Schwarzenegger arriving.
2. The Terminator
If Conan the Barbarian brought Arnold Schwarzenegger on the main scene, The Terminator established his position. The film was also James Cameron, who went on to direct two top grossing movies in the history of cinema: Titanic and Avatar, announcing himself to the world. The Terminator was a roaring success and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance as a robot assassin intent on one thing and one thing only: to kill his target. This ruthless single-mindedness of a machine would not have been portrayed so well by any other actor.
3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
While in The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger was a robot assassin, in Terminator 2: Judgement Day he was a saviour of John Connor, the future salvation of humanity against the war against machines. In Judgement Day, Arnold’s character Terminator was facing an even more powerful and advanced robot whose motive was exactly the opposite: to kill John Connor.
4. Total Recall
Total Recall is one of the few films of Arnold Schwarzenegger that is heavy on thematic content. The primary motif of the film is mindwipe – or erasing of somebody’s mind that usually includes introducing new memories instead of leaving it blank. That’s what happens with Arnold’s character in the film and he gives a good performance portraying the role of a man who is reliving his past memories (that were mysteriously removed) as dreams.
5. Predator
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Special Forces soldier in Predator whose team is tasked to rescue an official hostage from insurgents. The team gets more then it signed up for. They find themselves hunted by an alien monster called – you guessed it – Predator. Arnold Schwarzenegger is superb in this role and actually seems to relish it. Although Predator has a paper-thin plot and even shallower characters, it has everything one would want in a popcorn monster flick with oodles of gore and constant action.
We wish the star a year filled with happiness and health!
