REVIEW: The Terminator (1984) – Cameron Outdoing Himself

Runtime: 108 Mins
Rated: R
What To Expect: The REAL bad to the bone cyborgetic organism

Eventually, all four Terminator movies are going to be reviewed here.  It’s high time they (and movies like them) were catalogued on this site.  Starting with the first, one of what will probably only two good Terminator movies that’ll ever be made.  Often when people are quizzed on their favourite movie of all time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day is the answer that is mentioned before even thinking.  It’s damned near the perfect movie and was an opinion I’d shared for many years.  But a few years back I started to recognise that the first Terminator movie is not only superior to Terminator 2, it’s probably James Cameron’s best movie.

The thing is that The Terminator is just leaner, meaner and more direct than Terminator 2.  It has a point to make, the same point that T2 made but first to make it, and does it with ruthless efficiency.  This movie is a master class in pacing.  There is no time to stop off at the desert and contemplate life, there most certainly isn’t time to visit male strip clubs or talk to hands.  A fine story is best told the first time and The Terminator is told in 1:47:00 with zero flab weighing those minutes down.  Pertinent plot points are told literally on the move, with Reese explaining the machinations of a post-nuclear apocalypse literally while racing a car at high speed, avoiding bullets as he goes.

Arnold was the star of the show in both movies and there’s no doubt that he’s a cool protector in the second.  But one of the things that gives The Terminator that little edge over Terminator 2, is that he works better as the antagonist, he plays fearsome better.  In this movie, The Terminator does not know why you cry, but more importantly, it couldn’t give a fuck.  All it wants is to kill, and it will not stop, ever.  Perhaps the scene where it smashes a child’s toy truck under the wheel of the car that it has stolen is symbolic between the two movies.  It’s both callous and determinedly hurried.  There’s a job to do – kill Sarah Connor, we’re almost thankful that there were no brats on that street, the ‘Flock of Seagulls’ T-800 probably would’ve killed them, had they got in its way.

Perhaps Michael Biehn is the most underrated thing about The Terminator.  His Tech Com Forces soldier Kyle Reese pretty much carries the story on his back and Biehn was the perfect candidate to convey a mixture of soldierly determination mixed with vulnerable naivety.  To that end you could even argue that The Terminator is a straight up war movie.  You know, this movie was from a young and determined Jim Cameron.  Almost like it was without inhibitions that he may have had later in his career.  With Aliens and Terminator 2, he came quite close to equalling it.  Watching this movie again makes me long for Cameron to tone it down a little and prove that he can still create art with a hammer a chisel.

It has aged slightly, yet it’s timeless.  Thank you Jim Cameron and Orion Pictures.  We miss you.