Oh deary me.

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2009)

What a silly, silly movie. I wouldn't say i'm disappointed as after reading many reviews prior to seeing the film, i had a good idea of what to expect. But i have to say that at no point were these expectations exceeded. Terminator Salvation is a typical modern-day Hollywood blockbuster; lots of slick action sequences and good-looking young actors with little or no plot to back it up. I find it bemusing that so much money can be spent producing a major film and yet so little be invested in a good screenplay writer! What the hell. The amount of times i shook my head and despaired at how stupid this plot is beggars belief. When i first heard a 4th installment of the Terminator franchise was being worked on - and having seen a few sequence shots - i applauded the spin on the chase-premise and eagerly anticipated a serious futuristic war film. Sadly, T4 is way too dumb, unrealistic and lacking in atmosphere to ever fulfill this. Please tell me someone else wondered how John Connor manages to get back to his feet after being slugged in the chest by a T-800, thrown distance into metal bulkheads etc etc without breaking almost all the bones in his body??? Jesus Christ. How can anyone write this into a script and not think people will question it??? And how come Marcus, albeit in pretty impressive fashion, kicks some human butt in an early scene (but still conventionally) and then later (after we've discovered he's in fact a cyborg) is seen throwing T-800's around??? Why didn't he just use his prosthetic arms to crush the humans earlier??? Why was he struggling with them and how come his punches didn't rip the jaws off of the rednecks he was chinning??? STUPID!! Nobody has even thought about it! OK we'll just forget that bit 'cause he looked human then, but now we know he's a machine he can throw other machines around which probably weigh a metric tonne or something. Idiots. And one more major complaint: i was just about buying all the action stuff in the first half hour until the 100ft super-terminator shows up and starts picking people up and firing laser bolts. Yeah, OK, so we're supposed to believe that in just 9 years time (genius of Skynet or not) we can conceive a machine of that engineering complexity??? McG obviously watched Transformers a few too many times. Ridiculous.
Oh OK at times it's a fun ride but that's it, nothing more. It's just impossible not to compare the 3rd and 4th films to the 1st & 2nd and wonder if Hollywood is actually capable of producing a blockbuster with an intelligent f**king script. We're not impressed by shiny things blowing up anymore. Any film with some money behind it can do that. Think up something realistic and innovative before you continue to ruin classic stories again.
6 out of 10 just for some decent action sequences and occasionally reasonable acting, and a bit of nostalgia thrown in.