Back in the days when \'Titanic\' was just a big old boat and the script for \'Junior\' had not yet been accidentally dropped in the greenlight pile, James Cameron was the up-and-coming director of low-budget action movie \'Piranha II: Flying Killers\' and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a towering Teutonic wunderkind that you wouldn\'t want to mess with. Together they made \'The Terminator\', and transformed a genre forever.
The concept is fantastically simple: an unstoppable killing machine (Schwarzenegger) goes back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), future mother of John Connor, leader of the resistance. The direction is intelligent, humorous, and stylistic; Cameron gradually builds up the tension with a series of stacked set pieces that result in a fast-paced finale that effortlessly blends the intensity of face-to-face combat with the spectacle of bullet-ridden cops flying across the screen.
Oh yes, it\'s all very easy to laugh at the eighties perms, disco boogying and dated special effects. It\'s even easier to pick holes in the script: why, for example, when Sarah proves so difficult to kill, doesn\'t the Terminator go back in time another thirty years and kill her mother? And why, if he can expertly mimic anyone, does he choose to speak like a cack-brained Austrian?
Such distractions, however, do not override the fact that lying under this classic audience-pleaser is a dark, serious, emotive movie, with a convincing performance from Michael Biehn as Reese, and a genuinely disturbing man v machine subtext that still resonates today.
It\'s about time the commonly held misconception that Arnie\'s sixteen lines somehow form the basis of the movie is exposed as falsehood. Yet an attempt to find any other performer who could request a `phased plasma pulse-laser in the forty watt range\' with quite the same level of automated cool would be an uphill struggle indeed. `I\'ll be back\', he famously declares in his trademark shades. And thank Christ for that.
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
The Terminatorwas the film that cemented Arnold Schwarzenegger's place in the action-brawn ... more
firmament, and both his and the movie's subsequent iconic status are well deserved. He's chilling as the futuristic cyborg that kills without fear, without love,...
Postage & Packaging: free Super Saver Delivery Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
In this blazing sci-fi classic, Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as the fiercest ... more
and most relentless killing machine ever to threaten the survival of mankind! From the Oscar winning director of 'Titanic' this fast-paced, cleverly conceived, rip ...
Advantages: the best film ever? on a a great DVD?! you're damn right its true Disadvantages: the original 1984 subtitles do not appear at the beginning
Advantages: Uncommonly good storyline for an action film, super special effects, imaginative design, excellent value DVD Disadvantages: Many won't enjoy it for its occasionally-graphic violence
tom1clare 07.03.2004 (10.03.2004)
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Review of Terminator
![The Terminator (Two Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [1985]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78529423.jpg "The Terminator (Two Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [1985]")
![The Terminator [Special Edition]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/99374436.jpg "The Terminator [Special Edition]")
Oct 3rd, 2001
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