Not as heartfelt as the first two, but a good effort.

Rating: 8/10 (27 May 2009)

Newcomers complained about needing knowledge from the previous installments. I felt that all the basics were recapped. Also, there were many parallelisms/ homages to the previous films. This movie measures up with the action and special effects but lacks the expected pacing of a Terminator movie. I've come to expect a progressive and relentless increase in intensity as the movie progresses but this one decreases in scale. The ending also leaves much to be desired, as even the third movie had a better one. Planning this as a new trilogy should have gave them leeway to make an ending that measures up to the previous movies, or even to the rest of this film. As it is, the ending makes T4 a complete episode in itself, with little weight to carry over to the next movies and make them a thematic whole. I'd score the first half of the movie an edge-of-your-seat 10, the end battle a passable 7, the epilogue a hokey 4. The music by Danny Elfman also seems less than an improvement over Brad Fiedel's previous score. The movie didn't seem to suffer much from the PG rating. Less blood and gore but much more explosions. All in all, the movie was inspired but lacked heart. I'd still look forward to T5.