`Terminator'
By Neil Myers
Some movies take a futuristic
theme and make it believable,
engrossing and entertaining.
"The Terminator, a current
box office smash, " makes a
valiant attempt but gets zapped
by its own high-tech show.
"The Terminator" stars Ar
nold Schwarzenegger of Mr.
Universe fame as an android
from the future, where
machines fight for control of
the earth against a dedicated
band of human rebels.
Schwarzenegger has a single
minded obsession--to kill Sarah
Connor, an unobtrusinve
young Los Angeles waitress.
Sent from the future to pro
tect Connor is Kiel Reese, a
young hero-type with average
hero-type ambitions: to save the
future by saving the soon-to-be
mother of his reble group's
leaden John Connor.
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This, of course, is no easy
task when you're fighting a
superhuman machine, and a
good part of the movie is spent
following Reese, Connor and
the Terminator around Los
Angeles as the android emo
tionlessly attempts to carry out
his programming.
Wonders could be worked
for this movie by cutting out
the opening scene, where two
objects that are -supposed to
pass for spacecraft with laser
weapons shoot at a band of
sorry-looking hum - ans. The
problem is that the machines
look like they came from the
toy department at McCrory's,
and they appear only briefly
before the plot jumps back to
the present and the audience is
left wondering what the scene
means in the scheme of the
movie.
I suspect the director and the
writers intend to tease the
adolescent audience with the
high-tech display, and perhaps
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misses the mark
to set some basis for the rest of
the movie. They may ac
complish the first task with
some success, but they also lose
any critical viewers and create
more problems than they solve.
A lot more could be done to
increase the film's plausibility
by delving into Kiel Reese's
character. As it is, Reese's sup
posed life-long love for Sarah
comes as a surprise, and the one
fleeting love scene seems in
congruous given Reese's card
board nature.
Sarah, meanwhile, at least
manages to be incredulous at
her selection as the victim of a
murderer from the future. We
see a little more of her than
Reese, and her growth from an
anonymous boopsie to the
mother of humanity can almost
be swallowed, albeit with a
large dose of sugar.
Schwarzenegger's
character, on the other hand,
has no dimension, which just
about suits his acting abilities.
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November 29, 1984 The Capitol Times Page 11
Unlike the shark in "Jaws,"
which takes on an almost
demonic invulnerability,
Schwarzenegger's Terminator
takes on an almost comic per
sistence. Despite Connor's and
Reese's attempts to blow it up,
burn it, shoot it with automatic
weapons and run it into a wall,
the robot lives on, defying the
laws of physics. Moreover,
there's no human aspect to the
character--a key ingredient in
successful "non-human"
science-fiction personages like
"Star Trek's" Mr. Spock or
Hal the computer in "2001: A
Space Odyssey." As he is, the
Terminator would make a bad
stand-in for Wile E. Coyote
and offers even less as a
dramatic character.
Throughout the movie I
found myself wanting to believe
the premise that a future socie
ty would include a battle bet
ween men and machines, but I
kept searching for more
background and detail. All of
the careful chronological infor-
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mation of movies like "Planet
of the Apes" is missing here,
and the movie suffers.
I also kept wondering why
Schwarzenegger was bent on
killing Connor; I didn't find
out until half way through the
movie. And I was put off by the
imbecilic characterization of
the police. It would have helped
to include at least one itelligent
cop who could think for
himself and fight beside Reese
and Connor, but that is ap
parently asking too much.
"The Terminator" is not an
inherently bad movie. Lots of
other films have dealt suc
cessfully with futuristic
societies, cybernetics and seem
ingly unstoppable creatures.
This one, unfortunately, treats
its subject with an almost
cartoon-like simplicity. The
shallow characterization, over
simplified plot and mediocre
specialeffccts yia,ke.`,`The Ter
minator" a movie you can af
ford to miss.
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