Could've been much better

Rating: 4/10 (11 August 2009)

Christian Bale is a good actor, our Charlie Barltlett is there (Anton Yelchin), and to my surprise, Helena Bonhem Carter pops up. Everything could be so good.
This movie seriously lacks a story. I expected a plot based on John Connor struggling to become the savior of mankind, but it is based on a man named Marcus that we don't care about. Then he is revealed to be a half human machine (by the way, how could Skynet did it really, when it just got the technology to produce T-800s?), with a mission to infiltrate human resistance. He doesn't know his mission, but Skynet expects him to carry it out and obey. Whatever. I expected him to be revealed as a far superior model, sent from distant future by John Connor, to protect Kyle Reese. That could've been a much satisfying plot twist.
The film also suffers from bad directing. There are blazing fires everywhere around the machine city that tells us the director is a man who overuses the word "cool". Skynet defenses are pathetic, the prisoners walk out safely, air support comes without opposition, and John has to deal with one or two (I don't remember, one T-600 and one T-800 I suppose) machines to go in and out. Plain silly.
The movie ends with so cliché words that it reminds us that this movie is a product manufactured by extremely boring people who do their job, get paid and be done with it. James Cameron 'wanted' to make a good movie and he made it real. This is a blunt action movie with a bad script and worse directing.