The Terminator (1984)
Terminator 2 is the best science fiction action movie. The first is the best science fiction horror. Yes, I rate this slightly higher than Alien. I have watched T2 many more times and always remembered the first as good, but glad I took the time to rewatch it again for the first time in probably more than 15 years. It is even better than I recalled.
What works here better than T2 is how terrifying the Terminator and the future is. As Kyle says with his famous lines that “it can’t be reasoned with”, Arnold plays the unstoppable relentless killing machine to perfection. He only has like ten lines in the entire movie, but that should not take anything away from his physical acting abilities. He makes a very convincing robot with a single programmed objective. The T-1000 in T2 was also equally, if not more, unstoppable and relentless, but somehow it didn’t feel as horrifying because Arnold was there to help. Here Kyle and Sarah are alone and very clearly against tougher odds.
Time travel stories usually break down if it goes into too many details, but here it is managed well with only spending a little time on it - just enough for the viewer to be invested in the concept to get the story going. I liked the little moment where Sarah gets annoyed about being talked about in the past tense. As we know, the hardest part of time travel is getting the grammar right.
Even though all Terminator movies is about the end of the world, I don’t think any of the sequels gets even close in how frightening it is presented here. The ground is literally littered with human skulls and the flashbacks/forwards from Kyle show a really depressing terrifying future under machine dominance.
The main theme is the best in all of cinematic history. It still gives me goosebumps everytime. It is menacing in the title sequence but poetically beautiful in the piano version for the lovemaking scene.
Rating: 5