The Terminator Review by Thom (5 Stars)

The Terminator Review by Thom (5 Stars) | MatchFlick

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Movie Details

All Movie Info

Starring:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Rick Rossovich, Dick Miller, Earl Boen, Brian Thompson

Directed By:
James Cameron

Written By:
James Cameron

The Terminator (1984)

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Movie Review by Thom
March 20th, 2008

It's Never Left

Favorite Movie Quote: "F*ck you, assh*le."

If you were to go into a producer's office and try to pitch the idea of a soldier from the future coming back through time to save the life of the mother of the leader of humanity's future army in a war against machines - machines which have sent a cyborg back in time to do the killing - and the soldier is in fact the father of the leader, you'd probably get laughed off the lot. At least prior to Jim Cameron's masterful Terminator.

Terminator pits cyborg of the future (Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger) against soldier (and let's admit, a bit of a stalker really) of the future, Kyle Reese (the under-appreciated Michael Biehn) and mother of future bad-ass John Conner, Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton). Both assassin and protector care little about anything but Sarah, as the world - and most everything and everyone in it - is soon to go poof (for the younger readers, in the 80's we Americans were still constantly fretting about nuclear war). Sarah is understandably freaked out by both Terminator and Reese, spending the first half of the film fleeing both.

Terminator does so many things right that it would be easier talking about what it does wrong - more or less nothing. Terminator is a non-stop roller-coaster alternating between action, suspense, and horror. Expertly crafted, Terminator can keep the dick and fart crowd happy with violence and explosions and can please the snobby critics with various interesting questions about technology, death, and the idea that we, as human beings, have become so disconnected with one another that a machine could walk among us undetected.

Though Cameron, for the most part, consistently delivers solid and sometime great films, I don't know that he'll ever best his work on Terminator. The same could probably be said about the three principles (Arnold, Biehn, and Hamilton).

Terminator has spawned two sequels (progressively less good) and now a TV series (unbelievably terrible) so it's important to remember that once it was great and recognize and appreciate the skill that came to bear in the original. Beyond its genre (and its descendants), Terminator is a great film.

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	Tim Mar 20, 2008 12:26 AM also wrote a review of The Terminator
"the under-appreciated Michael Biehn" I couldnt have said that better myself.....he is great.

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