Doesn't live up to the classic original and first sequel.

Rating: 6/10 (8 June 2009)

I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The movie is not as bad as some would have you believe. The action was impressive... sound design was great. It was top notch from a visual and aural standpoint, apart from the shaky cam during the action, which gets a bit much.
The story was OK... but there was a bunch of problems with it. For one, Skynet was completely, and utterly retarded. Why wouldn't it kill Kyle Reese straight away? And how would it even know he's John Connor's father, unless it had access to the police and hospital videos from T1 and T2? Why was Skynet kidnapping people when it was clearly established in T1 and T2 that its only goal was to destroy humanity? And why did Skynet need big screen monitors? And keyboards? It's a farking computer program! And then why did Skynet have to give a Bond villain speech using Helena Bonham Carter's face? I'm usually OK with retarded stuff in movies. In general I can forgive it, but when it comes from a pedigree like Terminator... I mean, come on. The writing was pretty weak as a whole, but at least there were a bunch of little nods to the previous films that I enjoyed.
Christian Bale seemed to have phoned in his performance. Sam Worthington was pretty good - looks like Hollywood has a new action hero. Go Australia! ;) Anton Yetchin was pretty decent as a young Kyle Reese... BUT - that rapper guy sucked. Moon Bloodgood sucked. The little afro kid sucked. All three characters played by these people were completely and utterly pointless and out of place. Cut them all out and you instantly have a better film. Also, the biggest problem with the casting was Bryce Dallas Howard. Too young, too weak, too pretty and make up laden. She's supposed to be 16 years older than Claire Danes was in 2003, and did not look it at all. She's too young and it made no sense. Overall, the acting was pretty hammy and it shows that McG does not have the ability to get good performances out of his actors. Also, Michael Ironside is cool. Too bad he got such a small role.
Also, although I DID like the look of the post-apocalyptic world... I thought they should have kept it more in line with the look of the future war in the first 2 movies. The sky darkened by nuclear ash, more vicious, relentless Terminators... People just trying to survive. Even T3 got that right when they briefly showed the future war there.
T3 was just a jokey, self-parodying rehash for the most part... BUT... the best parts of T3 were better than the best parts of T4. That said... I did enjoy T4... at least for the action, design, sound and the tiny consistent things they got right. From that standpoint, it was good.