Continuing my Arnold Schwarzenegger retrospective, it's interesting that just as Arnold was being established as a hammy, over-the-top, crazy yet fun actor, he was almost immediately chosen for a role very much of subtlety and little-to-no emotion. Or, let me put it this way. People saw him go absolutely nuts as the titular figure in Conan the Barbarian and thought to themselves, "You know what role he would be good at? A lifeless robot..." Here's my review of arguably Arnold's most iconic film role: 1984's The Terminator.
In the year 2029, mankind is in the midst of an ongoing war with machines as cyborgs and supercomputers have all but dominated the human race, and are pushing for extinction. The machine side sends a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to 1984 to hunt down and "terminate" one Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who is destined to be the mother of John Connor, the machines' greatest threat in the future. In response, the humans send back Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a soldier sworn to protect Ms. Connor at all costs. So the chase is on to track Sarah down and decide the fate of her as-of-yet unborn child, AKA mankind's only hope for salvation.
Now, given my opening statement, I guess it's only fitting to start with acting. How does Arnold fit in to the role of a lifeless, emotionless killing machine??? Well...much better than he did Conan, I'll say that much. I know we love to kid this guy for his not-so-subtle performances, but, here, he gives probably the most silent and calm role of his career and does it rather well. He becomes almost a cybernetic Jason Voorhees with his cold, collected, intimidating nature, and also his resilience to having been blown up and/or set on fire at least 3 or 4 separate times.
As for the supporting cast...eh, they do their job. Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn are not great, but they're okay and they serve their purpose in the story just fine. There are some cops that get involved that are enjoyable and offer a bit of fun comic relief. One role I really enjoyed was Earl Boen as a psychologist. At one point, Sarah and Reese get pulled into questioning by the police, and they initially believe Reese to be crazy when he starts talking about the future, so they bring in this psychologist who basically humors him and talks down to him as if he's mentally ill. The performance is great, and it's a really funny and interesting scene.
As with Conan, one of the highlights of this movie is the action. There's a car chase between Sarah and Reese, and the Terminator, that is really well shot and very visually and audibly captivating. Did I say audibly? Oh, yeah. The original musical score in this film is superb and compliments the scenes perfectly. Brad Fiedel's the composer to thank for that, and he exceeds at his job.
The Terminator is another one of those movies that is filled with cheese, but it's pretty forgivable. You have a brow-raising premise which plays with the time travel element like a pro, some really thrilling action, and a stellar performance from Arnold which definitely caused this movie to earn its place in people's minds as one of his most major and important roles. It's a really great action flick which does a great job of appealing to both action and science fiction fanatics. If you haven't sought it out already, give it a shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment