An icon of its time and for all time

Rating: 9/10 (30 September 2014)

"The Terminator" is two things that are very good to be: a movie that is of its time, and a movie for all time. From the opening minutes it is almost fetishistically contemporary. A superimposed text says the events of the film take place "tonight," a rather hokey tactic, most often seen in the horror genre, that may create a sense of immediacy for some first-run viewers but that becomes increasingly ironic as time takes its toll on the fashion, the music, the hair, and so on. "Terminator"'s first act is an onslaught of such tell-tale signs of the time, and the time in question is peak 1980s. This is not a bad thing. The movie so successfully captures the spirit of its era that later movies set in its milieu often appear to be, and in many cases undoubtedly are, copying it. It wasn't the first movie to take place in fume- and trash-filled urban alleys and neon-lit dance clubs, or to feature independent women who do things like have sex and ride motorcycles without prompting censure or even comment, but it was arguably the best and best-looking and most influential movie to do these things at this time. In other words, it is an icon of 1980s film.
It is also an icon of film generally. It accomplished that even grander feat through a combination of brilliant achievements. First, the casting, particularly of Arnold Schwarzenegger. His early acting career benefited enormously from the existence of roles that nobody else could have played quite as well. Conan the Barbarian was a near-Neanderthal: strong, serious, a mythic figure of great stature and few words. The Terminator is the same, though he kills for different reasons. Arnold is menacing, darkly funny, and extremely cool in the role, all at once. Second, the script. It serves timeless lines on a silver platter for Schwarzenegger and the other two leads, and they all three seem to know exactly what to do with them. They take soundbytes and throw them at us like sticks of dynamite, and when they land we feel them: "Come with me if you want to live," "I'll be back," and "You're terminated, f*cker." (The last one is another reminder that we're in the 1980s, a long-ago time when action and sci-fi movies were sometimes made for adults, not just teens. The language here is strong, the violence is not all bloodless, and the sex is very much on- screen.) Third, a time-travel plot that is unusually well thought out, capable of being communicated without too much belabored exposition, and that leaves plenty of room for further exploration without raising too many unanswered questions. It is strong conceptual ground on which to build a media empire.
Like 1983's "WarGames" (which also featured a motorcycle-riding female lead), the central idea in "Terminator" is that computers might one day destroy humanity. Unlike "WarGames," which approached the subject from a software angle and took its cues from real programming concepts, "Terminator" casts a tangible piece of hardware in the role of unstoppable stalker killer. This leads to perhaps its only real weakness as a movie. Toward the end, as plot recedes and special effects (mostly stop motion) come to the fore, it begins to feel too much like the horror movies that it echoes in its opening text. The false endings that typify that genre are as predictable as ever, and the Terminator becomes just another riff on Michael Myers. But if the penultimate scenes are derivative, they are nevertheless satisfying, and the film ends on a note that provides closure and leaves you eager for more.