Movie Review by Bill Rendall

The Terminator

James Cameron established his reputation as a director with The Terminator. Although he went on to even greater fame as the director of The Titanic I think he has done his best work in the action sci-fi genre.

The Terminator postulates a future dystopia in which machines wage a war on what is left of mankind after a nuclear holocaust. The movie cleverly uses the plot device of time travel back to the present. This allows the inclusion of futuristic elements without incurring the expense of futuristic sets. Cameron had to make The Terminator on a very modest budget compared to his later movies.

Arnold Swarzenegger plays the title role, for which he is well suited with his mechanical sounding accent. The Terminator offers much more than his typical shoot-'em-up movies with corny one-liners. This is a rare occasion when Arnie plays the bad guy rather than the hero.

The Terminator gets my award for the most spectacular entrance by a movie character. This is when Swarzenegger returns to the police station after delivering his classic line "I'll be back."

There is a surprising amount of character development in The Terminator. The Linda Hamilton character is transformed from a fashion-conscious party girl into a warrior. She is also involved in a romantic subplot.

The movie soundtrack sounds like it was done on the cheap with synthesizers. In most movies this would have been very detrimental. However, in The Terminator the mechanical, emotionless quality of the soundtrack is somewhat appropriate.

The animation of the terminator exoskeleton at the end of the movie looks jerky and artificial compared to more recent movies. However, I find the primitive animation technique really eerie and it actually makes The Terminator more horrific.

I recommend The Terminator as a ground-breaker in it's genre.

Director: James Cameron

Screenplay: James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd, Harlan Ellison

Music: Brad Fiedel

Further viewing:

The Terminator was followed by Terminator 2, which incorporates clever twists and references to the original. The sequel makes effective use of an increased budget and advances in special effects, particularly morphing.

Cameron also directed a great sequel to Alien. There are very few movie sequels which I consider worth watching so Cameron has achieved something special by directing worthy sequels to two movies.

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