THE TERMINATOR
A film review by Raghava S. Setlur
Copyright 1996 Raghava S. Setlur
(1984) 3.9 / 4.0
I never liked Arnold S. We even had a bastardization of his difficult last name. His movies were, how shall I put it, mentally negligible. When this movie came out back in 1988 in my hometown of Bangalore, India, I politely declined the invitation from some of my friends. But as weeks went by, one day when there was nothing else to do, and all the other movies I wanted to see were seen, I grudgingly went to see this flick. Let me tell you somethin'. I loved it man, I loved it.
Arnie was perfect in this movie. All that bad press about being as stoical as a robot really pays off here. The story, visuals, action, colors and the effects blend together successfullly, capped by some eerie music.
Anyway the premise of this movie is this: In the future, there will be a nuclear war against, get this, computers and humans. Most of the humans die but a few enterprising souls survive the holocaust. I never did get how they did. Probably it is a crime to watch movies on basic cable. You don't know what they leave out. How did the computers survive. There might be more than a few technical glitches in terms of the effects of nuclear explosions on power supply could be intricate. This and some other questions do come up, inevitably in any science fiction or time travel movie. Another one would be that the man from the future explains that only living things could get through the time machine, so he could not bring his custom made ray gun or his best suit, but came in his birthday suit instead. Pray tell me how hair and nail which are dead tissue survived the arduous journey. The terminator itself, or a cyborg has a metallic skeleton. Would it survive, I wonder? Maybe, just maybe, there is some simple explanation to all this.
The Hollywood way of portraying easy sex. Linda Hamilton eagerly goes to bed with the man from the future immediately after he says that she was the only woman he wanted. Very accomodating. That was not the typical blind date. There are many instances of such inexplicable actions in Hollywood movies that tends to carry the notion of the loose American women to all parts of the world. My idea of American women was formed from the American movies.
These are some nitpickings in an otherwise perfect movie. It has good story to tell and paces it well, making it very entertaining and edgy along the way. Critics who have a bias against action/ sf genre (Gene Siskel comes readily to mind) and keep complaining that every picture is a genre picture should see this one. It is much, much better than those weary drama movies that they keep harping about. The concept of existence and different realities is similar to back to the future movies, but is stronger. The mind boggles at the complexities of all this.
The machines want to kill off the humans' leader's mother before he was born. They rig up a time travel device back to the present. And send a death dealing machine with human features and outer tissues. Fortunately for us, a human soldier manages to follow.
The terminator's mission, it will accept it, for Christ's sake, it is a machine is to go back to 1984, kill the mother of the child who will one day become the ruler of men in the war against machines in a post apocalyptic world. Here name is Connor, Sarah Connor. The city: L.A. You will have no team and no, yes I mean no, point man. You will also have no clothes. But that is a minor inconvenience.
One of the things I liked about the killing and the mayhem is that the terminator cannot be argued or cajoled with. It does not sit around making small talk and giving away secrets (Bond movies) but just says " I'll be back." Which it does. Then promptly goes about doing its business of killing. If you wanna shoot, shoot, don't talk. The lack of dialogue and emotion actually works in Arnold's favor since that is how a terminator is supposed to act. And he is the bad guy. Nowadays he plays the good guy which is less interesting. One of the mistakes the sequel made. This is vastly superior to T2, which had the mental institution thing that left an unpleasant taste in the mouth. The only thing that T2 did better was its special effects. But that is another review.
The way everything fits into place is pleasant to see. Of course there are the usual shootings and car chases but it seems more relevant than most other pictures as the terminator tries to kill every Sarah Connor in the phone book. The screenplay writers are to be congratulated. The production values are good and the direction very sure footed and stylized. There are some neat tricks and ideas which makes it a pleasure to watch this movie. The terminator can learn the accent and inotation of every person it hears. With a computer screen that pops up occasionally to process data for it. Dogs can detect terminators and start barking at them. Why? No idea.
When you have this wacky idea that somebody in a large American city is picking names from the phone book and shooting them, it is surprising that no one has used motif in real life. We have letter bombers and Zodiac killers, so somebody might still use it.
The rest of the movie deals with the Terminator trying to kill the Connor woman and the man from the future trying to save her. The special effects are ground breaking and the story is inventive till the end. The last 15 minutes with arnold coming out of the fire like a phoenix minus his human persona and chasing the two people is spooky. This is great special effects with the skeleton like robot running around. You still get the feeling it is Arnold S. even though you don't see him on the screen. Mission: Impossible. Even for the terminator. I enthusiastically recommend this movie to anyone who has not seen it. A classic. A near perfect score of: 3.9 / 4.0
--XXX-- -- As always, expecting a reply,
Bye for now, Raghava S. Setlur. SUNY at Stony Brook rsetlur@sbee.sunysb.edu June 21, 1996
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