Movie of the Week: The Terminator

   

 

    Movie of the Week (6/16/13-6/22/13): Again, I'm a little late this week with my Movie of the Week because of Father's Day, but don't panic! We do have a movie for this week and that movie is the Sci-fi classic, The Terminator. This is the movie that launched writer/director James Cameron''s career, he's the guy who brought us Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic, and Avatar. He's the man who helped change visual effects in movies and brought us the new and improved CGI effects, he is also a Sci-fi man. When this movie came out in 1984 it help spawn a new age of effects and Sci-fi horror. It was a landmark change for cinema.
    This film follows a waitress named Sarah Conner, played by Linda Hamilton, who is being pursued by a man/machine known as a Terminator, who is of course played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. This "Terminator" was sent from the future by machines to kill her before she has a son named John Conner, who will lead a rebellion against the machines in the future. But, something else was sent from the future to help her, a human named Kyle Reese, who is played by Michael Biehn.
    All three of these actors probably had their breakout in film with these roles they portrayed. Arnold is the best known now and this would become one of his most iconic roles because he does a great job in the film. He would reprise this role two more times, maybe more in the future. We truly believe he is an evil machine out to kill a woman just by his movements and his need and want of killing her and by killing other people with her same name. Linda Hamilton also gave us a very good performance, some times cheesy, but overall she really looks scared out of her mind. Michael Biehn is one of those actors who is very underrated and should be doing more Theatrical stuff because everything he is in he shines, you can tell he loves his roles because he knows how to embrace himself in them, another great performance from him.
    Now, like I said this movie change cinema with its effects, although two other films by James Cameron would progress CGI even further in the next seven years after this came out. But, this has very good effects, mainly from the Terminator because nobody could imagine in the time this came out that something like that could be done. The effects on the Terminator were very well done and kept the audience interested and sometimes a little sick to their stomachs because it was so surreal. The only thing, to me, that hurt the film was that it was a little ahead of its time and by that I mean the effects it called for cost so much that a couple times it is hard to tell if it's a machine for a minute or Arnold playing it, but that's really alright.
    In the end what we have here is a great Sci-fi horror movie with some great action scenes, effects, acting, and musical score. We all know that iconic score that made the movie haunting and then turned right around and gave us some relief. This was James Cameron's second movie he directed and he did a fantastic job and he only got better after this. This isn't the best Terminator movie in the franchise, we all know which one that is, but it is the one that started it all. It is a dark Sci-fi movie that will be remembered for its star, complex story, score, and director who helped change the course of cinema with his groundbreaking film.                                                                        
3.5/4 Stars