 Tagline: It can't be bargained with, it cant be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Tagline: In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of this planet devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the Future by changing the Past. The plan required something that felt no pity. No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable. They created 'THE TERMINATOR' In this newly remastered film, Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the most fierce and relentless killing machine ever to threaten the survival of mankind! An indestructible cyborg - a Terminator (Schwarzenegger) - is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the woman whose unborn son will become humanity's only hope in a future war against machines. This legendary sci-fi thriller from pioneering writer/director James Cameron, written with Gale Anne Hurd, fires an arsenal of action and heart-stopping suspense that never lets up! Storyline: A cyborg is sent from the future on a deadly mission. He has to kill Sarah Connor, a young woman whose life will have a great significance in years to come. Sarah has only one protector - Kyle Reese - also sent from the future. The Terminator uses his exceptional intelligence and strength to find Sarah, but is there any way to stop the seemingly indestructible cyborg ? Written by Colin Tinto The Terminator is one of the more important films of the last 25 years. It launched both director James Cameron and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom. Cameron would go on to direct several blockbusters including The Abyss, Aliens, True Lies, Titanic, and, of course, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. "The Austrian Oak" Schwarzenegger, the former world-renowned body builder and Mr. Olympia, had starred in several low budget films like Hercules in New York and the moderately successful Conan films before donning the trademark shades of the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 Terminator. Schwarzenegger too would star in the Cameron films True Lies and T2, not to mention Predator, Commando, and the touching, vastly underrated comedy Twins. Now dubbed "The Governator," Schwarzenegger has moved past film and is currently the governor of the State of California. The Terminator is the movie that created two Hollywood legends and for good reason. This is one of the most remarkable science fiction/action films in Hollywood history, featuring then-groundbreaking effects on a low budget, a mesmerizing story line, fine acting and direction, and, of course, tremendous action sequences. Written by Reviewer Martin Liebman, December 16, 2007 Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Michael Reuben, February 14, 2013 -- I have seen the original Terminator film probably a hundred times, but I am always struck by its fundamental elegance. On a limited budget of under $6.5 million, director James Cameron, making his second feature, created a sci-fi classic that holds up favorably against later films with more advanced effects and bigger budgets for one simple reason: Cameron has always understood that story matters. His films always provide an engaging narrative, and his ability to elicit emotionally convincing performances from actors was evident in his earliest work (and has too often been taken for granted). Look no further than The Terminator's tragic love story between Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese. Even viewers who haven't seen the original Terminator know the story from one of its three sequels. In the year 1984, an ordinary young woman from Los Angeles, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), find herself the target of a relentless killer cyborg from the future (Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the role that made him an international star). The cyborg, known as a "Terminator", has been sent from the future by a race of machines controlled by a supercomputer (dubbed "Skynet" in the sequels) that has attempted to wipe out humanity by launching a nuclear attack. Survivors of the resulting war organized a successful resistance under the leadership of John Connor, the son that Sarah will bear in the future. The Terminator's mission is to prevent John's birth by executing his mother before he is even conceived. In a simple but efficient stroke of plotting, the future John Connor is able to send back a trusted lieutenant to protect his future mom: Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn, in what remains his best screen performance). Much of the film's kick, both at the time of its release and still today, comes from watching the two antagonists, Reese and the Terminator, treat the urban landscape as just another battlefield, in which everything is merely material for an ongoing fight. The Terminator doesn't care, because it has no feelings; and Reese doesn't care, because he knows that everything around him will be incinerated in just a few years. Collateral damage to vehicles, buildings and people doesn't concern either of them. The police, led by Lt. Traxler and Det. Vukovich (Paul Winfield and Lance Henriksen, both superb), are ill-prepared for this kind of adversary. They're used to dealing with criminals, not soldiers, and in the case of the Terminator, they don't understand why shooting him repeatedly doesn't put him down for good. (As an aside, one can understand Cameron's interest in writing the script for what became Rambo. The character of John Rambo in First Blood treated the American small town that proved so inhospitable in much the same way that Reese and the Terminator treat L.A., and those police were equally unprepared.) As Sarah Connor, Linda Hamilton convincingly traces an arc from average girl to terrified victim to angry skeptic who's sure Reese is crazy and, finally, to horrified acceptance of the evidence of her own eyes as the Terminator keeps coming for her. It's the credibility of Hamilton's transformation that makes the emotional bond between Sarah and Reese so compelling. They really do have no one but each other on whom to depend. When Reese first explains to Sarah that he's been assigned to protect her from the Terminator, he says: "It's just him and me." Eventually, though, it's him and them. The Terminator pre-dated the CG era that its sequel famously inaugurated, but its combination of mechanical effects, prosthetics, animation, opticals, miniatures and rear projection still holds up, because Cameron has always used effects in service of a good story, rather than creating a story to service the effects. The film also demonstrates Cameron's early mastery of editing rhythms and camera angles to create visual energy with as much impact as the most striking special effect. Look closely at the edits following the Terminator's famous "I'll be back" line, or the accelerating series of cuts when the Terminator has commandeered a tanker truck and is trying to run down Sarah while Reece attempts to bomb the truck. The director would work with much larger budgets on future projects (think of the helicopter/limousine rescue in True Lies), but his editing template for edge-of-the-seat action was already well-established in The Terminator. Trivia:
IMDb Rating (07/24/12): 7.5/10 from 118,498 users
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