Mama never told me about days like these!

Rating: 4/10 (25 May 2009)

"Terminator Salvation," is a film anticipated for probably over a year now, a fact that quickly undermines it's chances of being well received. But, alright then, the story about the future war between man and machine and John Conner's epic leadership of the brave Human Resistance.
But, it opens with a convicted killer in 2003 going to his execution, and agreeing to give his soon-to-be-dead body over to Cyberdyne Systems, represented by a cancerous Marla from "Fight Club." Meanwhile, in the future, Conner is realizing that the future his mother told him about, where the machines mimic humans, may be coming to life. Ah! So Conner must prevent this from happening and thats what our movie is about, right?
Not so much. Instead we end up being focused more on the resurrected convict who may, or may not, be a good guy. And who, may, or may not, himself, be a Terminator. Instead on spending more time following the story of John Conner played by the abrasive, but talented, Christian Bale, we follow some dude we didn't ask for, Marcus Wright, played by a guy we don't know, Sam Worthington. After conveniently going straight to a young Kyle Reese. He begins the slow process of crossing paths with John Conner. The movie seems more concerned about Marcus's plight than with Conner's, who we we thought was the real centerpiece of the story.
Even if you are totally obvious to this huge subplot, you are completely onto the fact that Marcus is himself a robot, or at least a partial robot. Especially seeing as he was executed at the start of the film, and has seemingly awakened unscathed in the future. Yet, for some reason, he seems completely ignorant to the fact. (Despite things like the annoying sound of servos and hydraulics coming from his body in lieu of muscles, or the fact that he now sees in infrared and bits of code... I would guess.) Yet, he continues on with few or any questions. I knew he was a robot. You will know he was robot. How did any of us know that? We were just sitting in the theater.
The next scene(s) involves Kyle, Marcus, an unnamed mute little girl who is their constant traveling companion, and several other Humans who are either killed, or taken hostage, by various Terminator machines. Some fly, some come in motorcycle form, while others are huge and feature gun heads.
At that point, let us admit something here. The inspiration for these designs came not from the previous installments, the mind of James Cameron, Industrial L & M, or even the late Stan Winston, to whom the film is dedicated. Let us be clear on the elephant in the room: obviously, the producers and robot designers here were trying to imitate Michael Bay's Transformers. They were not interested in paying any homage to the better, far more interesting characters from before, but, rather, trying to compete with Bay and to get on the side of your Taco Bell Big Gulp. Shame on them. And somebody needs to call on them for that.
But, I would be lying if I said the action scenes are not fun. At least director McG (Yes, that is what he wants us to call him) had the decency to not copy the Michael Bay formula of assaulting your eyes with such an orgy of explosions and action that you can't make heads or tells of whats going on. Rather, we are allowed to just watch. I appreciate that.
It certainly does what it intends to do here, but begins to fizzle and fall into unbelievable even more as the film progresses. What I don't appreciate is actresses who are too unbelievably attractive to be a soldier in a radiated, post-apocalyptic landscape, and the way too many convenient plot holes.
The film's climax in the Skynet "central" factory comes with the most exciting part of the film, followed by tons of disappointments. There's the utterly ridiculous scene where the main computer (?), with the face of Helena Bonham Carter, that just registers of the scale on the goofy meter. We are treated to a shot of a finished T-800 that looks like a young Arnie, only to have our excitement immediately taken away, and a boring fight scene weakly fills-in.
"Terminator: Salvation" is a sometimes fun movie, but is utterly disappointing. We end up being given a story we didn't ask for, featuring characters we end up not really caring about. It does nothing to pay homage to the previous films other that what may be just tongue-in-cheek. (Would anybody really be listening to Guns n' Roses in the future?) It has countless plot holes, and leaves more questions than answers.
And the overacting is embarrassing. Christian Bale, seemingly a talented man, just tries to hard to go the "intense" route to the point that no one can relate to him anymore. And Sam Worthigton pointlessly screams more than Bruce Willis in "Die Hard." Robert Patrick as the T-1000, by simply basing his movements on either that of a shark or bald eagle, easily acts circles around these guys. (His reward for the role of the T-1000 was to get sloppy-seconds from David Duchovny, and to fill various go-to villain roles in bad HBO films.) The first two movies were practically iconic, and inspired a long list of knock-offs. But, "Terminator: Salvation" ends up sadly looking like the knock-off, and it sets its standard pretty low.
The first two films were practically iconic, including some of the most exciting and dynamic action scenes ever filmed. So, instead of putting down and cash to see this, I would recommend staying in and watching the director's cut of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and waiting till "Salvation" goes straight to the DVD bargain bin.
That's one future I feel safe to predict is very soon.