Do Not Waste Your Time, Money, and Consciousness

Rating: 1/10 (23 May 2009)

TERMINATER: SALVATION is truly an abomination to the franchise - and don't for one second suspect otherwise.
I read one thing in the paper yesterday that suggested "the critics liked it" -(?) -- it garnered an astonishing Two And A Half stars in our local rag - - (!!) -- with a caveat that "it has no heart" -- well there's a shocker for ya -- I do not need to be told that a piece of fecal matter has no cardiovascular system -- its a redundancy I can do without, thank you very much -- here is a movie that deserves not one whit more than a ZERO STAR rating.
How on earth anyone - a professional critic or otherwise -- could even possibly give this movie more than ZERO STARS is beyond me. This sorry excuse for a movie is firing on ALL chambers when it comes to MISSING the mark: *SPOILERS* No shred of a plot with any grounded sense of coherence whatsoever, folks. The director "McG"'s notion of a plot can be summed up in one name, "John Connor." Oh wait, I forgot - there is a twist. (Don't worry about spoilers - - I couldn't possibly spoil this for you, and I don't mean that in a cheeky way. I literally mean that it is a physical impossibility for something without a plot to be spoiled. So read on. The twist is "Kyle Reese." Just throw in another iconic sounding character name with which an awestruck silence is generated every time its mentioned, and there you have it: the totality of this movie's "plot". (Don't ask me for an explanation: the movie offers none.)
And just as bad as "no plot" is the excruciatingly unfortunate realization that the setting - nearly a decade in the future (2018) - has zero visionary qualities, and I have to point out here that it ain't for any potentially noble reason as having accurately predicted that not much will change in 9 years. No. It's because they filmed this with what must have been McG's and crew's own jeeps and equipment - throw some military cameo netting and things bought for cheap at your local army surplus store, and you have "Terminator: Salvation". When all the dust settles - - you sit there blinking in astonishment that there really wasn't one damn worthy thing about this movie - no awesome future setting and no fully realized "terminator army"; just a few badly strewn together props with stale cheesy dialog thrown in.
But the movie did have some thought put into it, I guess. There is the token ragamuffin 9 year old girl with the nappy hair (check); her charming teenage companion with the mystery persona (check); and their god -given ability to pop out of nowhere with a convenient remote mine-trigger device to blow up titanic renegade Terminaters at a moment's notice (check).
This movie is far less than the sum of it's assembled parts - assembled entirely from every genre movie that came before it. I kid you not: if you were to painstakingly eliminate each and every scene and reference to a previous movie (Mad Max, Road Warrior, Terminators, etc) you would be left with NOTHING. It is that unoriginal.
So here's the deal. I've warned you not to waste your time and money and consciousness seeing this, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart. Seeing as how I happen to know that this is a "special" installment or continuation of a franchise that means a lot to us - I don't expect you to take my word for it. I know how it is. You want to find out for yourself; hell, you need to. So let's make a deal.
Halfway through the movie, the only thought running through my head was "I should lead a revolt of audience members to the box office demanding our money back". God do I ever wish I had at least tried. To do so - I would naturally have had to begin hurling obscenities at the screen, and I didn't because, well I didn't want to ruin the possibility that others might be, cough, enjoying themselves *wince*. Do I ever regret it, now.
When the ultimate slap to the face arrives (the end credits) -- you too will wish YOU had been the leader of such a noble revolt. So NOW you have the opportunity handed to you on a silver platter. I beseech thee all -- someone must take the responsibility to just yell out midway through this cinematic turd "THIS SUX!" with their fist in the air, and I can't imagine no one else in the theater agreeing or muttering their sympathetic consent. TAKE the opportunity to leap to your feet and look wildly around you. FIND the people frozen in their seats with eyes glazed over - decent people like you and me who have obviously INVESTED their hope, high expectations, valuable time, and hard-earned money - SNAP them awake to the realization that WE DON'T DESERVE THIS CRAP from Hollywood! Shout out dramatically "LET'S GO GET OUR MONEY BACK, PEOPLE!" and lead their way out of that theater and to the front lobby.
I want to read about it in the papers, how good people in several mid-western states ROSE UP and DEMANDED their money back. Because if we all just sit there like sheep stunned into submission - then we deserve yet another installment of prefabricated plasticity shoved down our throats. Let this be a lesson to all who would blunder into a theater to see a movie by someone named "McG". If its zero nutrition fast food fake movie franchise that you want - then you know where to line up.
TERMINATER: SALVATION opened in theaters nationwide Thursday, May 21st.