A merciless killing machine of a movie

Rating: 9/10 (3 April 2005)

There are classics and then there are classics. The Terminator has become a phenomenon, an embodiment of a ruthless killer and certainly the best robot murdering device from the future I've ever seen.
Sarah Conner is understandably upset to learn that a killer cyborg from the future has been sent back to the past (which WAS the present...I think) to kill her so she cannot give birth to the future leader of man against machine. But help is at hand in the form of Kyle Reese, a soldier also sent back to protect her from the terminator.
Thinking about it could make your head spin and it probably wont win many awards with Steven Hawkings but as an action film it delivers the goods. Arnold in his best ever role as an unthinking, unfeeling machine - just like in real life - is superb. It was the role he was artificially created to play. He wastes humans with reckless abandon, including a scene where he wipes out an entire police station to get to Connor. A scene so good it was even referenced in the second film.
The soundtrack is a huge contributer to the mood of the film and it's the darkest of the three Terminator flicks. Even if the formula was perfected in T2 : Judgement Day the first is still a cinema classic. It will make you paranoid towards all form of machinery for weeks to the extent you'll want to live in the woods in a house made from stones and parts of animals. Remember to keep your DVD though so you can watch this over and over again.