FILM REVIEW - The Terminator
In 1984, James Cameron, a relatively unknown director released a film called ‘The Terminator’. His first two forays into film faded into the abyss of abysmal productions. With this film, he was looking to create something that would carve his name onto the scene and lift his career off the ground. He had no idea of how far this film would take him.
The plot revolved around a woman named Sarah Connor, who finds one day that someone is killing people with the same name as her. Cut to Arnold Schwarzenegger as the cult classic villain, The Terminator, a robot sent back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, as she will eventually become the mother of John Connor, the leader of the human resistance against the machines. John also sends back one of his men, Kyle Reese to protect his mother. Cue some weird time loops and absolutely iconic quotes and you have one of the greatest cult classic sci-fi films of all time.
Linda Hamilton who plays Sarah Connor is one of the original female badasses of the silver screen, but in this film, she’s far from that person yet. I thought her acting was pretty good given I’d only seen her character in the sequel where she is a very different person. A lot of people say that Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t act, and I’d tell them to watch this film. His lack of facial movement makes him almost perfect as a psychopathic killer robot.
For its time, this film was most likely revolutionary in its ideas. Though the concept of A.I. and robot intelligence doesn’t seem so absurd, in the 80′s I can imagine this being a breakthrough, and it’s not difficult to see why this movie put Cameron, Hamilton and Schwarzenegger on the map.
The theme music is iconic and coupled with the state of the art graphics at the time actually mean that this film has survived the test of time. For all intents and purposes, this film was more of a horror film than sci-fi and you’ll see when you read my reviews for the sequels that the genre of this series differs from film to film. Overall though, an absolute classic!
Rating:
Story: 14/20
Acting: 12/20
Cinematography: 12/20
Music: 13/20
Enjoyability: 14/20