Milking the cow

Rating: Null/10 (1 December 2009)

Terminator Salvation is the 4th film in the "Terminator Franchise" and serves as a direct sequel to the previous three movies - The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). The premise is simple,after Skynet has destroyed much of humanity in a nuclear holocaust, a group of survivors led by John Connor struggles to keep the machines from finishing the job. Not so simple, as the fans know, is the overall story of the franchise which has time traveling as main device.Obviously there are a few paradoxes and every time a new terminator movie is released, things get a bit more complicated,a bit more far-fetched and inconsistencies start to show. I could easily see past that if the only problem of the movie were this minor flaws but that's not the case... The cgi and the special effects are good as expected but the actions scenes in Terminator Salvation are over the top and unrealistic,the main characters get thrown around,beat, they fall from awful highs and nothing serious ever happens to them. I know this is a film, but there has to be a limit ,otherwise it becomes ridiculous and turns into a circus.Regarding the acting, Anton Yelchin was great( as he always is) in the role of the young Kyle Reese and same thing goes for Sam Worthington who played the death row inmate turned into terminator Marcus Wright.Christian Bale on the other hand was a total disaster. He seemed more of a machine then the machines his character was fighting. Unable to convey any kind of emotion, he delivered a truly one-dimensional performance which is kind of a disappointment because he has proofed several times his value as an actor. Overall, I think this film shouldn't have been made. This franchise keeps being revived only because its still bankable when the only reason to do so should be because there's still a story worth telling or a direction worth exploring.
6/10