Greatest sci-fi/action movie ever?

Rating: 10/10 (25 March 2005)

I don't know if The Terminator is the best sci-fi/action film ever made by anyone, but if it's not...then I don't know what is.
I have seen this movie several dozen times since the age of 4, and it just gets better every time. It does have a special place in my heart, so I'll try and be as objective as possible in my review.
The plot is not as complicated as it seems. A man from the future is sent to 1984 Los Angeles to protect the mother of the unborn man who will lead the human race in resistance to the machines, who have also sent back a "terminator" to kill this woman, named Sarah Conner.
What makes this movie so much fun to watch is the fact that it starts going from frame one and doesn't stop until the very end. We first see the terminator come back, kill some punks (Bill Paxon is one of them!) rob a gun store, and proceed to kill everyone in the phone book who has the name Sarah Conner. In the meantime, the man is sent back, chased by the police, steals a shotgun and some homeless guy's clothes, and then looks for Sarah Conner. And when we first see Sarah, she is a fumbling waitress...not "the mother of the future".
When the terminator, the man (named Kyle Reese), and Sarah Conner all come together, we are treated to one of the paramount action scenes of all time. All three people in the same location and the slow-motion and cheesy 80's music starts up. At this point, anyone who is watching the movie for the first time has no idea who's on who's side. Then the terminator targets Sarah and Kyle interrupts the slow motion with gunfire. After that is a short but effective shoot-out (Uzi 9mm absolutely MUST be used in every 80's action movie), then a vehicle chase while Kyle lays down the exposition.
The thing that makes this movie so effective is the antagonist...the terminator. He is shot several times, thrown through a window, hit by a car...and he keeps on going. And I'm sure everyone (even some who have not see the movie) knows the famous line "I'll be back", which is said just before the terminator "visits the police station", if you know what I mean. At this point, Sarah and Kyle are at the police station, so they're safe, right? "There's thirty cops in this building", so they must be safe. Wrong. Five minutes later, everyone is dead and the building is burning to the ground...and the terminator keeps on going.
James Cameron's directing is outstanding, especially considering the $6,400,000 budget and the primitive yet effective special effects, which deserve special mention. The effects in this movie are, in parts, better than anything that can be done by today's cgi. Sure, there's many parts which are out-dated as hell, but there's still certain effects that look real enough to believe. The gas truck exploding at the end was a miniature actually exploding, not some fake cgi crap done on a computer. The metal terminator skeleton at the end is real, not a cgi effect (but the stop-motion scenes look AWFUL).
Considering the budget in relation to what was accomplished in this film, it's truly a remarkable effort that could probably not have been pulled off by anybody other than James Cameron. Add a script that is commonly used as a teaching tool for upcoming screenwriters and you have a spectacular film.
The only bad thing about this movie is that after watching it today, it makes you sad that nobody working today can make anything as good.