Amazing in parts, Bland in others

Rating: 6/10 (26 November 2009)

When I first heard that McG was going to be helming the Terminator franchise, I vowed never to watch it again. How could the man responsible for the Charlie's Angels movies possibly handle The Terminator? However, after seeing some impressive previews, I decided to take the risk and watch it.
I was pleasantly surprised.
Terminator Salvation does a lot of things right. It shows us the apocalyptic world we have been longing to see for a quarter of a century. The atmosphere is great, kind of crossing the Terminator franchise with Mad Max.
There are several brilliant action sequences in the film, from a Terminator motor bike chase to an impressive mine field fight scene. The story does away with the time travel aspect, something that was becoming strained in the series, and introduces an interesting premise of a Terminator being chased rather than a human.
The problem in this film lies in the characters. They are completely bland and underdeveloped. John Connor, the most important character in the series, takes a back seat role, and Sam Worthington's character seems to accept waking up in a post-apocalyptic world way too easily. Actors such as Common and Bryce Dallas Howard seem to have completely pointless roles in the movie, and seem to be only there to offer John Connor occasional words of advice.
The only character that seems to survive the film is Anton Yelchin's role as Kyle Reese. Yelchin does a fantastic job portraying a younger version of the character, and you can truly see him developing into the character we met in the original movie.
Had this film been 30 minutes long, and with a little more character development, it could have been right up there with the first two movies.
Shame.