Unfocused

Rating: 6/10 (4 July 2019)

This review contains spoilers.
'Terminator Salvation' is the sequel to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The movie was released in 2009. The fourth installment to the Terminator franchise is directed by McG, written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, and stars Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, and Moon Bloodgood. The movie takes place after Judgment Day and takes place during the opening years of the war between the Resistance and Skynet.
Terminator Salvation does its best in trying to present the war against the machines in the fourth installment of the movie. This does not make for an excellent movie. The movie meanders along and the promise of the apocalyptic fight with John Connor against the machines. The movie does not offer any satisfying conclusion. It simply presents events and tries to expand the backstory with the Terminator franchise. The ending in this movie resembles a sitcom where the characters are more or less in the same position they were from the start of the movie. This is the biggest detraction on the entire movie.
The action and production in this movie are overall solid. There is a disappointment in the color choices for this movie as any of the futuristic scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day do not come into view here. Terminator Salvation is encompassed by brown and light hues from the desert scenes. The dark and blue scenes from Terminator 2: Judgment Day is not present here. It makes for a disappointing experience as it feels like the movie is not fulfilling its promise from the earlier movies.
The characters in this movie are overall solid. John Connor, played by Christian Bale, has the intensity that fans of the series would expect. The casting of John Connor is great and he is easily one of the hallmarks of the movie. Sam Worthington plays Marcus Wright, a human-terminator hybrid. He does an appreciable job but his character had too much screen time. It felt like the movie wanted to have a cinematic universe of Terminators, rather than trying to tell a good stand-alone movie. I felt that the movie should have focused on Marcus Wright and had John Connor in a smaller role if this was what the movie wanted to go for. This puts the movie in a tough position as the movies have always been about the terminators and the Connor family. The movie fails to be both a movie about John Connor and Marcus Wright. They should have done one or the other and not both.
It is hard to recommend Terminator Salvation. The movie has too many flaws even though the action is solid. I would not recommend 'Terminator Salvation'.
Grade: D