Fails to stand on the shoulders of giants: good but not great.

Rating: 7/10 (7 June 2009)

I saw T:S last night and was saddened to find it as I anticipated: it was good, it was always going to be GOOD, but it wasn't great.
Define irony: The original Terminator film introduced a terrific new idea to sci-fi films and, under Cameron, did them brilliantly. The film The Matrix and TV series (the new one, not the original!) of Battlestar Gallatica took those ideas and developed them into new directions, expertly done with sometimes spectacular and thought-provoking story lines.
Then you have Terminator:Salvation, which treads the same path (particularly as B. S.) but doesn't do it quite as well. It has the mythology (as it were) of the original, but the result is, on a now well-trodden path, disappointing.
Why so? The casting was OK: Christian Bale maybe a little disappointing performing the kind of role he's now so familiar with, but Sam Worthington taking the plaudits with a brilliant emphatic and emotion-provoking performance (side note though - Helena Bonham Carter was dreadful and mis-cast - ol' forehead is a poor actress at the best of times, and Michael Ironside just too old to pull off a role which, again, is very familiar to him).
The problem I felt was in a clunky script ('I'll be back' indeed!) and a storyline the attempted to stand on the shoulders of those that post-dated the original film without ever accomplishing a new and/or compelling direction. That said, I did enjoy the frequent references to the preceding Terminator movies (of which there are many), perhaps despite myself.
Is the failure of this film (well, 'failure' is putting it a little high) ironic: have others taken the ideas of the original film and done them better than a film made after them all? I think so, which is a shame, albeit a predictable one.