Entertainment Weekly:
Thirty years ago, a killing machine from 2029—assuming the form of an Austrian bodybuilder—arrived with a lethal directive to alter the future. That he certainly did. The Terminator, made for $6.4 million by a couple of young disciples of B-movie king Roger Corman, became one of the defining sci-fi touchstones of all time.
It’s still a great movie even though it feels pretty dated now.
It is still a great movie. I wonder how it would do today. It’s one of my favorites though. I also really enjoyed Soldier with Kurt Russell. So many good sci fi movies. I even enjoyed the Terminator sequels.
It is a great movie. As a film, I think it’s actually better than T2. Yes T2 has a slicker production and genre defining VFX but it has a higher cheese factor. The kinda stuff that plagues Cameron and Schwarzenegger today.
Terminator is darker, grittier, and not afraid of being grownup.
Of course it’s dated; it takes place in the 1980s and uses 1980s storytelling style. Still works, though.
I also like the fact that Cameron was made to acknowledge some of his source material in the movie’s credits. You can’t have a Terminator without Harlan Ellison’s “Soldier.”