Action = Good. Story = Nonsensical craziness

Rating: 5/10 (4 June 2009)

The first half of this film is excellent. Tense, dramatic, involving, with some expertly-handled action sequences that will have you on the edge of your seat if you're inclined to move forwards inexplicably while excited. The dialogue is terrible, but since there's very little of it in the first half, it really doesn't interfere with the sheer spectacle of the thing. The sense of devastation and emptiness of the world after Judgement Day is well-portrayed, and the sets are excellent (in this part of the film), despite some criticisms I have read. I thought the cityscapes and hideouts shown are in keeping with the glimpses we saw of the future in the first film. There is even a real sense of hopelessness and awe at the relentless onslaught of the machines - as it should be.
Then it gets really bad, really quickly.
The main problem, for me, is the entire premise of the film once Kyle Reese has been captured. This is when two massive plot holes, so gaping that they absolutely engulf any reason or point in watching the film, become apparent. Firstly - how can the machines possibly know that Kyle Reese is John Connor's father? It's certainly not explained within the film, in any case. The film's events are all taking place years before Reese is sent back in time and has sex with Sarah Connor. So unless the machines can either see into the future, or they have bugged John Connor within the time-line of the film so that they can hear the tapes from Sarah Connor (and if so then why, if they're able to get close enough to him to bug him, didn't they wipe out him and the entire base there and then), or it simply says on John Connor's birth certificate that Reese is the father, records to which Skynet gain access (and so they make some huge leap of logic and decide that instead of the Kyle Reese from within the film's time-line just being someone called 'Kyle Reese', and that fact being purely a coincidence, that it MUST be because this man went back in time and impregnated John Connor's mother. And they deduce this despite the fact that, presumably in this point, Skynet hasn't invented the time travel method anyway).
The problem is, the plot holes don't end there. So - even if the machines DO know that Kyle Reese is John Connor's dad, by any of the (also logically problematic) means above, why don't they just kill him the minute they lay their sensors on him - thereby eradicating John Connor from existence altogether? And if the machines DON'T know that Kyle Reese is the father, why is he number one on the hit-list baring in mind he's just a civilian? And a teenager? And if the Marcus Wright character is an infiltration cyborg, programmed to believe he's human so as to come across convincingly real enough to get inside the resistance base, why do they not program in some command somewhere that takes over as soon as he's released, to kill everybody in there. That's what they all expected would happen. That's what should have happened once he was released. The fact that it didn't happen, and he still carries on unaware of his role until he gets to Skynet, makes no sense at all. These are machines, they think logically. Presumably they can ONLY think logically, and efficiently. But their plan is the most unnecessarily convoluted one imaginable, with infinite opportunities to carry out their main objectives (kill Kyle Reese and John Connor - even though they don't need to actually kill John Connor at all, just Reese, then Connor will cease to exist) at about a hundred points along the way, opportunities which they never take for no explained reason.
Yes, there were paradoxes in the first two films (I'm ignoring the third one as it just should never have even been), but these were not technically 'plot holes' so much as classic time travel conundrums which are entertaining concepts in themselves. At least you can understand the machine's reasoning in the first films. The problem with this one is that none of it makes any sense.
Also, the whole dialogue between General Ashdown and John Connor (pretty much any time they communicate but particularly at the point when Ashdown relieves Connor of his command) is surely the most hilariously bad ever written. It was also pretty funny the way everyone had to constantly refer to him as 'John Connor'. Almost NEVER John, not even 'Connor' (as you might expect given the military setting). Constantly 'John Connor'. Even the man himself calls himself by his whole name at every opportunity. Brilliant. And Christian Bale shouts VERY unnecessarily at any remote rise in emotion he experiences. He's not the most calm leader in the world. You'd be a nervous wreck under his command within a couple of days.
So first part good, last part bad - hence 5 out of 10.