Tired of the Franchise? Don't Forget It Stands On Its Own Legs Quite Well.

Rating: 10/10 (7 September 2011)

Given that the world can take this movie completely for granted now, one can forget how gradually Cameron unravels what's happening with the two nude men who emerge one night from a torrent of voltage: One, a colossal Germanic beast, dispatches of a crew of punks to obtain their clothes first thing after he instantaneously regains his orientation. Those clothes, incidentally, should definitely not fit the much massive man, but that's merely one of a goodly figure of plot cavities that I only ever note after it's over: Like several ambitious thriller directors before him, Cameron reveals an exceptional skill at sustaining the action so summarily that this or that inconsistent detail doesn't matter. The second nude, Michael Biehn, doesn't have the same massive figure or imperviousness, but he has the vigilance and taut physique of an animal, stealing clothes too, managing to pinch a gun.
By this stage we're beginning to note that this smaller man may not entirely be so formidable like the other, as he's conspicuously not killed anyone yet, but we still don't understand how any of it relates to the opening title card describing a war between humans and machines, or why both men have such a concern with the three Sarah Conners in the metro area phone book. It swiftly becomes clear to us which of the three is the one who counts, as we meet her in the form of Linda Hamilton. We see how tedious her life is, with her co-worker observing, in what we don't yet recognize is irony, that in 100 years, nobody will care. Then Sarah finds on the news that someone with precisely her name has been viciously murdered. Thinking little about it, she arranges for a night out with her roommate Ginger while the LAPD, led by Paul Winfield and Lance Henriksen, have to manage the second execution-style killing of a Sarah Connor in one day.
We still don't know what's happening, theoretically at least: We saw the giant man murder the initial Sarah, we're not familiar with the second, and neither man has yet verified himself as trustworthy the slightest bit. So when the smaller man manages to begin stalking our Sarah, we've every cause to presume that he's trouble, and so does she, having by now gathered the murders lead straight to her. She dodges into an ascetically '80s club to call the police and disappear. Two presumably deadly, anonymous, wordless men hunt the same woman in the packed nightspot. At least one now has a substantial arsenal. Eventually, half hour in, one says his very first line of dialogue: "Come with me if you want to live." With hero and villain now conclusively determined, the movie's remainder is utterly a chase, Schwarzenegger pursuing the two humans through LA, slaughter and nothing else on his agenda. I remain unendingly stunned by how superbly Cameron sustains the tension: Unquestionably in that first half hour, there's not one second that's missing heart and soul, when even the essential exposition of Sarah's life is managed with utmost effectiveness. Even in the enormous info-dumps that Biehn is burdened with, we have no sense of the film slumping under the load of it all. When he bothers to tell Sarah, and us, the plot in essence, it comes directly after a climactic point, when we're viscerally prepared for the film to let us decompress.
There's the cost-conscious way that Cameron shares information about Biehn and Schwarzenegger, ensuring that we'll be engrossed in deciphering who they are. The sharp-witted strokes characterizing Sarah, making her so authentic that we viscerally crave her survival until he can bother to show us just why we should be particularly concerned. Sarah as a convincing, appealing person is much due to Hamilton playing a young woman of no seeming significance pushed into a nightmare and never permitted to find her balance. This is usually the part that feels like just a bookmark, but Hamilton emphasizes her uncommonly distinctive sense of a woman in an '80s killer-stalking-girl flick.
Biehn, never my favorite actor, nevertheless seems a sinewy, astute beast as much as a human. It evokes the frantic anguish of his future life, and makes us pity this tattered endurer. Meanwhile, the epically iconic rogue of the film: It takes authority, and in Schwarzenegger's case, a grand succession of close-mouthed expressions, tweaks of the head. He may be a machine, but he's a convincing one. It's a categorically star-making performance.
Cinematographer Adam Greenberg encapsulates a grimy, murky world, scattered by overpowering fluorescents. Stan Winston's Terminator endoskeleton is the stuff of legend, even if some of the animatronics in certain shots are charmingly old-fashioned. Of all the collaborators, still, it's composer Brad Fiedel that merits the most affection: His throbbing, techno-flavored theme leads one of the finest film scores throughout all the 1980s, and it's maybe the best instrument Cameron has to use in maintaining the film's propulsion. It's exciting, dissonant and harsh, that unremitting bass line keeping the movie seeming like it'll never brake, not unless the menace is quelled. Cameron's assurance in his material brings his debut far beyond the standard of all the other films where the screenplay is merely a cause for explosions and car chases: It's a plot with import and desperate interests. Though the characters may be standards, they have persona, and their future is an issue of sincere apprehension.