Simple but genius

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2011)

Sometimes the simple ideas are the best. In the future, a computer system was taken over the world and seeks to eliminate humanity. However, the human resistance, under the leadership of John Conner, is turning the tide. The computers send back a cyborg (a robot covered with flesh) back in time to kill John Conner's mother Sarah, so that John Conner never gets born. Conner, in turn, sends one of his lieutenants, Kyle Reese, back to protect his mother.
This film has science fiction trimmings, but it is essentially a chase movie - the cyborg Terminator is virtually unstoppable as it pursues Sarah and Kyle with a complete lack of emotion and total relentlessness. The simplicity of the concept leaves plenty of room for the plot developments, which are few but important.
This was a cheap film - James Cameron was not a big name director at this point - but, given its low budget, it is well staged with the exception of some of the effects which betray the lack of bucks behind them.
But as well as the strength of its simplicity, it has the additional strengths of immensely strong performances from Linda Hamilton as Sarah Conner (transforming from cliché screaming bimbo to the flint-hard woman she needs to be to bring her son up to meet his destiny), and Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator. In truth, he doesn't need to do much more than keep a straight face and lend his remarkable physical presence to the implacable robot. And, in so doing, he planted his feet in the foundations of a film career which saw him become cinema's top box office draw for a decade.