The Terminator (1984) * * *

Directed by:  James Cameron

Starring:  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Paul Winfield

Sarah Connor (Hamilton) is an ordinary Los Angeles woman with a job and an apartment with a roommate.   She seems nice enough, so why is a nearly indestructible cyborg killer from the future trying to kill her?    As it turns out, Sarah will one day the mother of the resistance leader in a future war against super computers who want to obliterate humankind.   A man named Kyle Reese (Biehn) is sent back to 1980's Los Angeles to protect Sarah from The Terminator, but that's an uphill battle considering The Terminator can absorb rounds of bullets and keeps coming.

Naturally, Sarah at first thinks Kyle is crazy, as would anyone else, but every word of the story is true, and soon a united Sarah and Kyle do their mightiest to outwit and destroy The Terminator.    Sarah can't believe this is happening to her.   "Do I look like a mother of the future?  I can't even balance a checkbook."   Not only is The Terminator physically indestructible, but he displays no emotion, so he can't be bargained with or feel any remorse or pity.    He is a robot under orders and he must complete his mission. 

The Terminator was the beginning of a franchise which really only needed this film and its amazing sequel Terminator II: Judgment Day (1991) to tell a satisfying story.   However, Hollywood couldn't leave well enough alone, and four more unnecessary Terminator movies followed.    The Terminator made Arnold Schwarzenegger a Hollywood box office juggernaut.    The movie itself succeeds on the level of a nightmare in which you can't escape someone who relentlessly stalks you.   With his immense size and cold demeanor, Schwarzenegger is the perfect Terminator.   Hamilton and Biehn are not pushovers, just determined to do the best they can in a terrifying situation against a seemingly unstoppable opponent.

James Cameron put himself on the map with The Terminator as a director of big budget spectacles which combined imagination and superior production values.   Even when some of his movies don't hit the mark, you still marvel at their scope and visual splendor.    Cameron is not afraid to swing for the fences, and the box office results landed him with the all-time box office champion (Avatar) and runner-up (Titanic) until Avatar was narrowly usurped by last year's Avengers: Endgame.  The Terminator works as a horror film in which you can't tell which is more horrifying:  the present day in which a Terminator is hunting you, or a war-torn, bleak future in which something like a Terminator can be spawned.