Largely Disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (6 June 2009)

When a film opens with a huge text narrative you know the filmmaker is going to have a hard time showing the rest of the story.
There were some interesting ideas, here, but the film just did not elicit any emotional involvement from me... it did not give me a reason to care for any characters except the little girl who did not speak. This film does not stand on its own like the first two and does not add anything of merit to the Terminator series, IMHO.
I had really hoped this film would salvage the Terminator franchise from the pits of T3... didn't happen. The Batman franchise has been reinvigorated with a gritty new Batman. 007 has been reborn tougher and cooler. I expected this film to follow the trend and reinvigorate the Terminator franchise.
John Connor *is* grittier in this film, but there isn't enough of a cool factor and very little to provide an emotional tie to this grittier John Connor.