“Terminus” is a Win for the Rewind Collection! Buy it Here!
Super genius boy Mati programs an artificial intelligence RV known as Monster to trek through adversarial armed forces infested territory in a long-haul driving competition to reach Terminus where the winner will receive their weight in gold. The Doctor, a mad cloning scientist who created the child, aims to subvert the government with Mati’s and the rest of his “unborn” clones under the malicious intentions of his superior named Sir. When the lone driver Gus, an American woman competing in the game, is imprisoned and subsequently murdered by a ruthless Major after Monster unusual malfunction, Gus is able to pass along the Monster’s accessibility password to her inmate and lover Stump, a compassionate, for-the-people rebel against the military cruelty. For his love for Gus and to do what’s right, Stump reluctantly joins Monster and a slaved orphan girl to finish the game while the boy genius Mati observes innocently from Terminus, but Doctor and Sir have other plans to use their clones and Monster to subvert government control.
As you can tell from the synopsis alone, the French-German coproduced, science fiction dystopian actioner “Terminus” makes about as much sense as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute – an exhilarating ride without any understanding from a safety cushion. Director Pierre-William Glenn, who was born at the height of Nazi-occupied France in 1943, helms the dystopian, futuristic picture from a script cowritten between Alain Gillot, Glenn and Patrice Duvic’s modifications, and Wallace Potts addition of English dialogue. Glenn, whose main profession is a cinematographer, with a prior 1987 select filmography including “Death Watch,” “The Murdered Young Girl,” and “Wheel of Ashes,” removes his eye from the camera viewfinder to being incorporated into all aspects of the production for one of his first feature length films. Anne François produces the film that was shot much in the landscapes and studios of Bavaria and Hungary under the European coalition of production companies of Initial Groupe, Les Films du Cheval de Fer, Films A2, CBL Films, and Cat Productions.
The script calls for and delivers color characters in a science fictional scope of subversive intentions, mad science, lone wolves, flawed good guys, mysterious pasts, unjustified brutality, and other varietal traits that run the gamut in this wild and untamed neo-revenge and sense of duty narrative. For Pierre-William Glenn, he likes to color outside the lines, shading layers with precise measure to flesh out their nature, such as with Stump, a bleeding heart, anti-violence, maverick unwilling to see the impoverished and innocent violated by authoritative rule, played by French rock-n-roll singer and actor Johnny Hallyday. Stump’s story stretches from how he lost his hand to his reasoning for joining the fight for Terminus unlike his companion Gus embodied by a notable American actress, “Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark’s” Karen Allen. Gus’s is specifically pointed out as American, perhaps only in the U.S. cut, but her background or reason why she plays the game is ultimately lost or never provided in the cryptic conversations she has with stump during their incarceration intimacies. We don’t even know why Gus is finitely taken out of the game by the callous Major (Dominique Valera) by either the eluding to the Major’s men gang-raping her or just severing her legs. Again, very cryptic. Allen co-headlines with the then up-and-coming “Das Boot” breakout star and Berlin, Germany born Jürgen Prochnow donning three roles, beginning with the head villain and red kimono-cladded Sir and his two clowns, the boy-genius creating “Doctor” and his more brutish field task rabbit Little Brother. “Robocop 2’s” Gabriel Damon plays whiz kid Mati, designer of the game and of Monster whose being manipulated by Sir as a guinea pig for a super army of super smart clones like himself. Julie Glenn, daughter of director Pierre-William Glen, brings up the rear as slave girl Princess. While Julie is no princess Leia joining the rebellion, the young actress is kept mostly quiet without much dialogue to give the gradually important character silent with only a couple of defining narrative moments that save the day.
“Terminus” has the componential makings of a surreal science fiction fantasy with a “Mad Max” tarpaulin overtop a “Flight of the Navigator” dominant core involving an A.I. Monster truck as a sanctioned, and calculating, entity guiding a path through the onslaught of roll caged government vehicles that drive about as good as Stormtroopers shoot. Clones are at the precipice of usurpation and the international game of drive hard and fast becomes a ploy for the genetic deception, but Glenn can never really harness that energy at the heart of “Terminus’s” well-built special effects, fascinating characters, set locations and production designs that evoke a failed, if not futile, future. The oppression angle loosely holds the yoke while Sir and his clones barely scratch the surface of being the true villains lurking in the shadows. Instead, much of “Terminus” is contained around Stump and Monster’s fostering trust and solidifying the key connection between Mati and Princess and what they mean to a semisoft society. “Terminus” is terribly lighthearted despite the story’s ugliness which is fleeting at best and audiences will not be confident in what they’re watching that have been intended for general audiences or restricted to an age limit as it all depends on which version, either U.S. or European, is viewed.
Landing as the 66th release on the MVD Rewind Collection sublabel, “Terminus” provides two varying versions on a new Blu-ray release. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is a collaborative release between MVDVisual and Multicom with a spectacular visual palette from a 2K scan of the original 35mm negative. There are two cuts of the film both presented in different aspect ratios based on country. The European Director’s Cut exhibits in the Eurpeaon 1.661 and incorporates back into the story all the edited violence and expands upon scenes with more context and accents by a whole 32 minutes, clocking in a total runtime of 115 minutes, comparatively to the U.S. version’s severely cut 83 minutes and is scene re-edited sequences. The European Director’s Cut is slightly more compressed horizontally whereas for US audiences is more vertically but there’s no overall image loss other than the cuts themselves. Grain appears and appeases healthily with little-to-no damage on a softer, lower contrast that brightens details but retains good textural value, especially around facial and skin features with equally organic tones. Both cuts come with a LPCM 2.0 Stereo mix; however, the Euroean Director’s Cut is strictly French with optional English subtitles while the US Version is English with optional English subtitles. Fun fact: Both cuts are of the same film but two different shoots as because due to financial obligations and marketing, production had to principal shoot the same scenes in two different languages and thus is why if it looks like Karen Allen’s mouth appears to be saying the French words, she is actually speaking French. However, both dialogues are a product of ADR so there’s some dyssynchronous between image and dialogue. Even Monster’s voice is changed radically between the two films with a more computerized squeaky female (or child) voice in the Euro-cut and a hip-hop and slang crafted male voice that’s less robotic. Both features handle the Stereo about as well as any front-loaded sound output could but a little more power in this track could go a long way with the explosions, crashes, and visual effect audio bytes being less emphasized and underfoot of the dialogue differences. Encoded special features include a new video interview with Jürgen Prochnow on the film and growing up in the German/US industries, a new We All Descent – The Making-of Terminus featurette that sees interviews with Pierre-William Glenn’s now adult children Vincent Glenn and Julie Glenn, the latter had the role of Princess in the story, and archival, French dialogued, English-subtitled interviews with the director. A photo gallery and the original theatrical trailer round out the extras. The MVD Rewind Collections continues to provide the never-old, always-awesome faux retro encasement with a cardboard o-slipcover with artificial poster wear imagery of an illustrative composition of Johnny Hallyday, Jürgen Prochnow, and Karen Allen and a VHS sticker as the cherry on top. The reverse cover of the primary, inside the clear Amaray case, has more colorfully alternative and little more kid friendly cover art and the disc is pressed with the plastic grooves of a VHS tape. An unlikely reviewed PG rated release has region free capabilities to be played across the globe.
Last Rites: Neither cut of “Terminus” outlines a clear-cut picture, but that ambivalence dotes cult and spurs disarray in parallel function that urges more from a story that wanes to the very end. At least the new MVD release is exceptional!
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