good start to a new 3 part film series.....has potential....need Chris Nolan or a talented director to replace MC G

Rating: 7/10 (23 June 2009)

I went to watch this in cinema the other night, its been out two or 3 weeks. So I've read and heard all of the hype about the story.
Firstly the positives should be the ever so consistent Christian bale, who once again is the pick of the cast, Moon Bloodgood, and the other female in this were impressive. Although Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese does steal the show, also Marcus rights character and the way he s portrayed soon becomes a positive in the film. Overall the casting was top notch without getting too many stars.
The other positives were let down by a poor publicity attempt by releasing the few good parts and twists that were in the script. Such things as telling us Arnold Schwarzenegger is in it, although only a CGI. Also releasing that th main cyborg, Marcus right, has a human heart, and is in fact half human half machine, when if they had kept that quiet, it could of become a massive although guessable twist in the script. This is also shows MC G either didn't care too much about the film, or just was poor in the ironing out of the script as he left many loopholes. For example in T3 Schwarzenegger says he terminated John Connor, in this he almost does, but doesn't succeed, so unless he adds this into the other films, which i doubt as he wont want to keep putting a CGI Schwarzenegger, then bale wasn't killed by him. This is OK because Connor says its a different future, but then MC G used a lot of history form the others, such as kyle Reese being Connor's dad, and the photograph, this is OK also, but MC G should of chose to base it on the whole history, or non at all, leaving many loopholes because he doesn't decide.
One huge loophole is that john Connor says he and Marcus wright (the cyborg) have been fighting for centuries, but there was never any mention of him in the other 3 films, and Connor doesn't know about him until now, So they haven't been fighting for years. Unless he means hypothetically as a machine, but then surely the machine would know? its just a bit unclear, something MC G should of ironed it again at the script phase, before making bale put a performance on a half completed story, and characters.
The negatives are simple, the direction. all decisions a director makes have big impacts, and although I believe MC G will become a talented director, I think the amount of potential and the scale of a terminator film is too big for his abilities, he still hasn't learnt his own directing strengths and weaknesses, he isn't ready for film this big. Because of that he uses way too many explosions, and action that completely overshadows the storyline, a storyline that wasn't overall too bad if plots had been kept quiet and filmed appropriately, for example, there's a scene where Christian Bale gets emotional trying to appeal to human emotions, and the scene gets you caring,....for 3 seconds then its over, it should of been dragged out, and really got you into the film before the final battle. Even the moments of cheese, such as where bale says "il be back" are done very tastefully, this particular one should be credited to Jonothan Nolan who helped write the dark knight with his very talented brother Christopher Nolan.
This poor direction to release too much and cut out too much story and replace it with action leaves you with still a good film, as the acting and script are pretty good. Just the directors choices and techniques lowered its overall rating.
Its understandable to see why Christian bale did his rant, after caring about a script and doing so well in his own performance, and being let down by the director and some dodgy lighting ;)
4 the next one i suggest any talented story director, Michael bay and jerry bruckheimer maybe? or the ever growing Chris Nolan