Picture anyone else as the titular HK. Just try it.

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 2007)

CAn't do it,can you? That's how indelible Arnold Schwazenegger is as the title character,a perfectly made HK(Hunter KIller)android who has been sent from the future to eliminate the would-be mother of humanity's fiercest rebel and last true hope.
Fortunately for the heroine of this show,SArah Connor(LInda Hamilton,before she beefed into the tough-chick she'd be type cast as AFTER T2,and probably best remembered as a similar,somewhat weaker type character in previous films like TAG and Children of the Corn),said machine has had to waste his way through Los Angeles to find her,so this buys her some time while one Kyle Reese(Michael Biehn,whose career has never completely up-turned since Aliens)also from the future,goes in pursuit of the 'droid AND protect Sarah,thus ensuring the birth of humanity's hero,one John Connor,and protecting humankind's future. As the droid draws nearer and nearer to Sarah and Kyle,and the body count rises,an adrenaline-pumping,gut-wrenching battle between Man's last best hope and a killing machine who"has no pity,no conscience,cannot be bargained with and will not stop until it finds and terminates its target(I'm paraphrasing here somewhat)" chugs toward fruition.
I learned not too long ago that director and co-writer James Cameron had NOT planned a sequel(let alone a trilogy or series)of this film and intended it to be a singular ending. Looking back at it as a whole product,it makes more sense(and that's all I'm saying from there so as to avoid any spoilers for those out there who HAVEN'T seen this film or aren't at least familiar with it). I can both understand why this film was only a marginal success when it was first released in late Fall/early Winter 1984: much of the cast were somewhat unknowns at the time,save Paul Warfield(As a doubting yet humane cop) and,of course,bodybuilding champ Schwarzenegger,and the concepts and images of the film were pure Sci-Fi,which always seems to be a bit of a hard sell to the general public. But much like another movie released around the same time,A Nightmare on Elm Street,it was a fairly unique and inexorably memorable movie that was bound to not only have sequels made but practically change the face of the genres they were made in. It's sequels are both well made(and I actually appreciated the whole size and scope of it's 1991 sequel,T2;Judgement Day somewhat better,the best of all three),and I intend to catch the next in the series,should it be made. Since Arnold vowed he was not doing any more movies as long as he's in public office,that could be a while. Still,it took almost twenty years to continue the simple storyline of man's battle with machines who've become far too powerful over just THREE movies,so what's another twenty years? It very well may be back.