Worst entry of the series by far

Rating: Null/10 (14 December 2009)

McG is the hamfisted directorial version of the Terminatoran unstoppable franchise destroying force who with "Terminator Salvation" may have managed to kill John Conner without firing a shot.
Salvation is a dull, cheerless exercise with not one character I cared about and not one line of dialogue that rang true. The man responsible for "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" has managed to take all the heart and emotion from James Cameron's efforts (and even the little left over from the mediocre "T3") and create an arch, clichéd, plot hole ridden, and above all boring Terminator film. How do you make killer robots boring? McG deserves a hearty smack for that inauspicious feat alone.
For all its numerous explosions, Salvation feels slight and hollow. Ostensibly good performers such as Christian Bale, Anton Yelchin and Bryce Dallas Howard don't fare well here. Sam Worthington, as a former death row inmate who's the victim of a hideous Skynet experiment, is the only player who has anything interesting to do. However, his character, like everyone else's, is so grossly underwritten that his actions later in the film have zero emotional impact.
Bale in particular is a disappointment. He channels his gruff Batman voice to make John Conner an angry, unlikable prick (Ah, the irony). Yelchin does a good Michael Biehn impression, but the circumstances in which his Kyle Reese are placed are ridiculous and cannot be ignored by even the most forgiving, disbelief suspending film fan. Put simply, if Skynet knows Reese is the father of the man leading the resistance, why not just kill him straightaway instead of capturing him?
This question is never answered, and the lack of explanation is just one facet of the lazy film-making on display. Another issue is one that plagues many wannabe apocalypse films, at least those made by untalented hacks. That is, while these people have been fighting for the existence of humanity for 15 years, many of them still look like they've stepped out of a Clairol ad. The nuclear holocaust must come with a great dental plan, because most everyone has perfect teeth. A small gripe perhaps, but reflective of the uninspired "blockbuster" nature of the proceedings.
Murderous machines or no, these plucky fighters have also managed to build a high-tech air force and a super cool submarine command center, while helicopters flit through the sky and buzz bomb unsuspecting robo-assassins. Remember that scene from T2 where Skynet's Harrier- like hunter/killer aircraft overpower the resistance's puny jeeps and outdated weaponry and the terminator robots actually seemed menacing? All of that sense of menace and danger is missing here. Not only do the good guys have awesome weapons, they also possess communications technology that allows one man to broadcast via radio to freedom fighters all over the country, if not the world. The horrifying, hardscrabble future portended in the first two Terminator movies is not so bleak after all, it seems.
The future of the Terminator series is cloudy, although McG has said he wants to make T5, and the end of Salvation certainly leaves things open for another sequel or two. My hope is that Cameron, finally finished with "Avatar," brings his storytelling vision back to the franchise, while McG goes back to making music videos.