SO much better than I expected! SO MUCH!!!

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2009)

So I took a look at some of the reviews people have given so far and i gotta say, they're much lower than i would have given the film...
Sure, the film doesn't have the same choking element that was signature and key to the first two films, BUT in all fairness, those films also relied on a sense of the unknown as characters in T1-3 where not from that the time frame of the war and didn't understand the technology, but it should have been apparent to anyone that knew this film was set DURING the war that everyone KNOWS whats going on, everyone is living in 2018 so why would the director want the sense of oncoming danger when one of the biggest problems with T3 is the fact the writers where getting lazy and simply recycling the script instead of allowing the series of films to progress, something T4 demonstrated quite well...
Now whilst i believe the Marcus Wright character should have had a longer "WTF IS GOING ON" period, he could never have been used to deliver the hard hitting tension of the first films so it's not a big deal.
Something i agree with Criticism-wise is the lack of night scenes and dark-sky shots that were evident in the Flash-Forwards we saw in the T1, 2 & 3 movies. But looking back at them now, you can see that these cut scenes are set much later, mostly after 2029 whereas this is set in 2018, so it's understandable that something may have occurred since then, or even that John Connor is stationed elsewhere later on in his life, but i can understand the use of bright sky used as the complex scenes would have been even harder to see with lack of vision, as there are few lights around outside... dunno if you noticed.
It was a very entertaining watch and for the first time since T2 i felt that that super computer at SkyNet, being one of the most advanced computers ever to be built, had a rational storyline other than just "Lets send a single terminator to ensure the best leader of all time is never born" "He's at the exact age where he could run from us and show signs of intelligence, lets send another single terminator to get John Conner again, the best leader of all time" "John Conner's twenty now, and although even when he was younger, the tactics we used didn't work, we're gonna upgrade our robot and try the exact same method again, without back-up" In this film the techniques used by the computer where very intelligent and also gave the films some wicked twists and turns. I absolutely loved it, it was FANTASTIC, not just for a film, but for a terminator film and don't let ANYONE tell you otherwise!!!!!!!!
-----SPOILERS VVVVVVV---------
I loved the motorbike-terminators, the Arnie sequence where he just walks out of the room, FANTASTIC! Although the face being burned off was hardly surprising, but i did like the occasional subtle references for the old Terminator fans, things like feeding us the name of Reese before he's introduced to the new audience and even the, "I'll be back" was a lovely little reference to the other films, it almost restored my faith in Signature series quotes as my trip to see Star-Trek previously didn't result in me hearing "It's Life Jim But Not As We Know It!" a single time! Still a great movie though...
Overall, the film was amazing, the sheer noise of it deserved an Oscar as did the music which reflected this noise - which was by no means unnecessary as the machines are hardly gonna care about hurting people's ears - The loudness of the film also nicely held together the loud flash-forward sequences from the T1s to 3 and also added to the tension VERY well.
I can't express how great the film was, the best aspect being the extremely clever, detailed and well constructed plot, as a terminator fan, a MUST SEE!!!