Futuristic Action

Rating: 8/10 (2 September 2009)

Apart from the initial scene the movie is set in the year 2018 in the aftermath of Judgement day, Skynet seems to be growing more intelligent and creating new ways and new machines to destroy the pockets of humankind still alive, not least Skynets main prey "The Resistance" and a certain John Connor.
Although not yet the leader of the resistance there seems to be some sort of prophecy amongst the resistance about Connor, which causes a small amount of annoyance to the commanders, but this is overshadowed in the movie by the constant driving force of action which there is little let up.
There are three main characters, John Connor who you all know, Kyle Reese, who is John Connors father in the past or is it the future maybe it's both, I'll let you work it out, and a new character named Marcus Wright, which I can only keep thinking would have been better cast with a younger CGI airbrushed Arnie, which would of fitted in very nicely for the storyline, despite my reservations about his casting, Sam Worthington fills the role adequately.
They all have pretty much equal importance and screen time, but for some reason unknown to me Kyle Reese has a young mute girl with him throughout, and I'm not quite sure why that is, as she doesn't really add anything to the movie.
The effects both visual and audio throughout are impressive especially the thudding and screeching of the machines, and the score by Danny Elfman from the opening sequence onwards also helps to get you in the mood for a Terminator movie.
There are small subtle hints and cheeky winks back to previous terminator movies scattered about, and a brief but surprising appearance from a younger Arnie, you could almost feel you was back in the 80's and everything was good again.
If like me you enjoyed the previous Terminator movies (some more than others) you will be pleasantly surprised with Terminator Salvation, it is as good if not better than T2 and has set the scene for a lot more action to come from the Terminator franchise.