Hmmm...

Rating: 6/10 (4 June 2009)

Sequels are a business fraught with difficulty. If you don't have a clear idea where the franchise is going from the start, they often get lost in a myriad of new characters and plot holes. Such is what happened to the Matrix sequels and such is what has happened here in Terminator: Salvation.
It is the Year 2018, and Skynet's Teminator program is wiping out the human population that is left post-Judgement Day. In this war scenario we find John Connor ( Christian Bale )- not the messianic leader yet of the Resistance but a leader of his own pocket of hardened veterans. However his faith in his mission is shaken by the arrival of a new figure- Marcus Wright ( Sam Worthington ) whose own agenda and past will force Connor to form an uneasy alliance with him in order to save Connor's father- Kyle Reece ( Anton Yelchin ).
Terminator Salvation is not a sci fi/action film- but rather a futuristic war movie that doesn't really add up. By making this movie only M rated ( PG-13 if you are in the states ) the war against the machines is reduced to something quite...tame. Terminators no longer are the ruthless killing machines that they once were and instead are quite content tossing people around a lot. The whole idea of a brutal world seems silly as it lacks the brutal bit. Why don't the terminators simply kill the marines instead of tossing them against walls? Why doesn't Skynet simply slaughter the humans as soon as they arrive? To their credit Worthington and Yelchin are quite good in their roles, giving Marcus and Kyle some good scenes together and managing to find something in what is a pretty dull story. Christian Bale on the other hand is waaaay too intense. Every line is delivered with a frown and a grimace and he doesn't seem to get emotional at all- except to yell.
Terminator: Salvation would always get compared to 1,2 & 3- but they've tipped the balance in the machines favour. In doing so the movie doesn't become more interesting, but less.