More lacking beneath the surface of explosions and gunfire than I remember, but still very much worth a watch.

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2017)

The story goes that the inspiration behind the idea of the Terminator films derives from a bout of illness its creator, James Cameron, had whilst working on a previous project that had tumbled into being a bit of a creative nightmare. Frantically trying to piece what turned out to be "Piranha: The Spawning" together in an edit lab against a ticking clock, Cameron became run down by something which gave him all sorts of unpleasant dreams about indestructible robots chasing him; his life being in mortal danger and nobody believing him.
It is perhaps the nightmarish quality of "The Terminator" which really allows it to stand out. Let us not mince our words, here – Cameron essentially hopped from one exploitation feature to another in making it. Everything that needs to be present for an effective Z-movie is present: the gore; the action; the nudity; the causality and the lack of a plot. That is not to be rude to the IDEA, which is wonderful - a robot killing machine is sent back in time to assassinate the mother of a brave resistance leader, who is proving to be a thorn in the side of the metal maniacs in their attempts to wipe out every last human-being. One of Cameron's characters even pokes fun at the premise, describing what the robot is attempting to do as a kind of "retroactive abortion". It is, however, little more than a cue for all-out mayhem across the urban sprawl of Los Angeles.
We have all read the essays and digested the feminist theory which revolves around the character of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) enough times by now for anybody to need to rehash it here. Put simply, Connor is the aforementioned target – the protagonist who learns of her destiny and is taken from being your generic bimbo, and a useless waitress, to a brave soldier. Later theory would revolve around Connor and the Terminator character transgressing their respective roles in the sequel, which had the 'killer' robot being reprogrammed to become a mother/guardian figure and Hamilton's character tooling up to wipe out a defenceless anomaly (Miles Bennett Dyson) for being something they were not even privy to.
Chasing Connor here is Arnold Schwarzenegger's titular Terminator: a metal exoskeleton operating underneath living flesh tissue and impervious to the pathetic weaponry of the 1980's, while also sent back is one of the future humans' top fieldsmen in Kyle Reece (Michael Biehn). One of the most endearing things about watching the film now, I suppose, is that each are playing the roles they are most famous for. The opening exchanges, as both time-travellers adapt to their surroundings; tools up to take the other on and go about hunting down Sarah, are good value. We witness The Terminator dealing with three rough-shot punks upon arrival with the simplest of ease, while Reece is depicted as actually having to run away and hide when the police pick up on his otherworldly arrival. Cameron's goal is fairly obvious: the odds are stacked against the good guys.
What follows is by no means 'bad', but it is remarkable as to how quickly the film settles into a causality driven process of action; chase and recovery – something is to be said, however, in the way Cameron kicks things back into life via the ingenious ways the Terminator picks back up on his prey again when it seems they've gotten away. More substantial is Cameron's social commentary, not to mention the love story which develops between Reece and Connor. Cameron shoots on location in Los Angeles at night, capturing the down-to-Earth reality of homelessness; street hoodlums and the general junk and filth which litters the streets – making, in the process, a correlation between the nightmarish ruined LA of the future, where the war is taking place. The film goes on to use a very clever transitional edit using a caterpillar track during scene whereby Reece falls asleep and dreams of the future to reiterate this: utopias do not exist.
Digging a little deeper, and analysing some of the franchise's cod-philosophies to do with destiny; making the future what it is and not being bound to your fate, may very well reveal one or two more truths, but that is for the individual viewer. On the whole, and while I am unsure as to whether there is as much substance here as everybody seems to remember, "The Terminator" does very little of what it attempts to do especially badly, and I think that is what propels its lasting power.