The Terminator

Before I start this review, I'm going to be perfectly honest upfront, because I absolutely LOVE the Terminator franchise. The concept is cool, the visual effects and action have always been fantastic, and I believe each of the films, even the not-so-good ones, brings something new to the table. But, as this is a popular franchise, it had to start out strong, didn't it? So let's look at what this first installment is all about.

The story focuses on a young woman named Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, who is being hunted by a humanoid machine known as a terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The reason she is being hunted is due to her being the mother of John Connor, the leader of the resistance in a future war where all machinery goes rogue and attempts to wipe out humanity, controlled by an artificial intelligence known as Skynet. But she is not alone, in addition to Skynet sending back a terminator to win the war before it begins, John sends one of his own soldiers, a man named Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn, to protect Sarah.

This film is primarily a chase film, where Kyle and Sarah are being pursued by the titular terminator who will stop at nothing to kill Sarah. It is exactly this determination which makes the terminator such a scary villain, because it gets beaten, shot at, even blown up at one point, and still it gets back up to continue going after Sarah. It's like the villain of a slasher movie, except it makes sense why it's so durable due to it being, well, an actual machine.

And, speaking of slasher movies, that really is what The Terminator really is at its core: A slasher movie with a sci-fi twist. The film constantly shows the terminator mowing down anybody between it and Sarah Connor, but unlike most slasher stories, you actually care about Sarah and Kyle. Sarah starts off as just an average waitress, but once she realizes she's being hunted, she grows as a character, becoming a badass worthy of her future reputation.

Initially, the opening leaves you wondering who both the terminator and Kyle Reese are and what they are doing 1984 to begin with, but the film slowly gives you more of the backstory as it goes along, meaning it kept me engaged the whole time. Also, the opening shots in the future with the machines crawling over a bunch of human skulls is both iconic and chilling at the same time. This movie keeps you guessing as to what will happen next, and I think that is a big factor in why it works so well.

Overall, I'd say this is one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time. I've always been a horror fan, and getting to see a sci-fi horror film that is more realistic and gritty compared to the trippy sci-fi horrors like The Cloverfield Paradox, well, it's a nice change of pace. It is simultaneously exciting to watch and yet, at the same time, terrifying, sort of like the titular villain himself.

Next time, we journey to the future once again to a space colony, where the last survivor of the Nostromo massacre is once again confronted with the terror of vicious extraterrestrials with a taste for blood. So keep an eye open when I review Aliens.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mario Marathon Part 6: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

I have to say, Mario way back in the early days of gaming used to be so creative, and this game is no exception. I mean, just like its predecessor, it's very weird, but that's what makes it so charming and fun to play. As with the first Mario Land title, this game was released on the Game Boy, but for being a game on such a simple console, they did quite a lot with the visuals and world designs. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that this game makes the first Super Mario Land look like a tech demo by comparison. The story is the usual flavor of weird that the first game had as well. Mario's castle that he just...has for some reason, has been taken over by the evil Wario and the door to the castle can only be unlocked by going to six zones and finding the golden coins that reside in each. Yeah, this game has a weird story. The six zones are really where the game shines, in my opinion. There is the tree zone, which is a grassland type area that takes place in a giant ...
Read more

Mario Marathon Part 4: Super Mario Land

Well, this was certainly a game, or at least, a good demonstration of one. This is one of the more bizarre Mario games out there, so let's talk about why that is. Super Mario Land was the first portable mainline Mario game, released for Nintendo's black and white Game Boy. So how did Mario on the go end up doing? Well, quite weirdly as mentioned earlier. While it is a 2D platformer like the other games reviewed so far, this game definitely tried to stand out in ways no other Mario game really has done before. The story follows Mario as he tries to save the kingdom of Sarasaland and its princess, Daisy, from the evil alien Tatanga. Already a departure from the norm for sure, but even the enemies are weird. For example, Koopas now turn into bombs when you jump on them instead of just hiding in their shells so you can kick them later on. The game plays like the first Mario game, but in black and white, with more bizarre enemies like the aforementioned Bombshell Koopas, and actual ...
Read more

Mario Marathon Part 1: Super Mario Bros

I like Mario, that much is clear from the random beginning of this specific marathon, but regardless, there has been so much Mario content that has come out over the last few years that a review of all the Mario games I consider important sounds like a no-brainer. Well, after a couple weeks of thinking about this, that's exactly what I am doing, and what better place than the game that started it all? That, of course, is Super Mario Bros. Now, this game is hardly the most complex thing out there. It's a sidescrolling platformer where you play as a plumber named Mario who has to save the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom from the villainous turtle dragon thing known as Bowser. But even this simple plot was revolutionary for gaming. You see, prior to this game, video games didn't have any sort of story to them and really were just things made to rack up high scores. This was the first game to really give a more fleshed out story than "Get as much points and then, I don...
Read more