Terminator - 4 stars out of 10

Terminator - 4 stars out of 10

"Terminator," the originator of the post-apocalyptic "robots take over the world" line of films, is only a good film because it inspired Terminator 2. It has two of the most famous lines in action cinema ("Come with me if you wanna live" and obviously "I'll be back") but beyond that, there isn't anything too clever about the dialogu...e. The focus of this film is definitely concept and special effects. It's ironic that Reese mentions that the robots were easy to spot when they had rubber faces... since it's really easy to spot the rubber faces throughout the film. That being said, the self-surgery scene was pretty good, sporting some decent special effects for 1984. The action sequences are good but the cyborg special effects toward the end (full body walking shots) really fall flat, taking a fairly realistic film and ruining it. They easily could have stuck with the half-body shots that DO work, but the editors must have just felt too ambitious for 1984. Terminator is good for what it is but since Terminator 2 can stand on it's own, there isn't much of a reason to watch this - instead, I'd recommend watching Terminator 2 twice.