Incredible for an action film

Rating: 10/10 (9 October 2002)

This is a really great movie and one of Cameron's best. Biehn and Schwarzenegger play their roles perfectly and the writing is very cool. Personally, I'm not sure why everyone prefers the sequel to this, but I couldn't even tolerate T2 due to the way they played it for cheap laughs and Schwarzenegger got to play the good guy, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
Biehn plays the part of the lone protector just as he should: desperate and unsure of himself, but with enough focus on his mission that he'll try as hard as he can to protect Sarah. Schwarzenegger plays the killing machine as a cold and unfeeling thing, unconcerned with anything at all except its end goal. Hamilton is great as an everywoman who has to muster more than she thinks she has just to survive and to deal with what she's told is coming ahead.
The only missteps were the relationship between Reese and Connor, as I thought this seemed out of place tonally and turned the movie into a different direction than it should have been going. Luckily, that's a small part of the movie and can easily be overlooked by how great the rest of it really is.
I'm not an action movie fan, but Cameron is right on target here and made me a believer. For one movie, anyway.