As big and soulless as a terminator

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2011)

Think about the original Terminator. Think about the clever premise, the emotional resonance, the humor, the suspense and the special effects. Now get rid of everything except the special effects and about half the suspense and you've got Terminator Salvation. This movie is a big-budget action picture that simply throws a lot of action sequences at you one after the other. This makes for a perfectly watchable action flick, but it is also easily the weakest entry in the series.
It also should have been the last entry. Producers have been squeezing everything out of the Terminator franchise they can for years, but the only reason to jump into the future is to show you how the premise of the previous movies and the TV series pay off. Instead, you have what will probably be the first in a series of big soulless action flicks that continue this big, uninteresting war story.
They would have been better off just making a movie version of the tragically short-lived TV series, but at this point I feel Terminator is just done. There is nothing left.