Very entertaining, great action, but has some flaws

Rating: 7/10 (22 May 2009)

From the first action scene in the future, I expected great entertainment, but not so great directing and possibly writing, and that is what we got. The style of the first action scene where we first see Connor made it somewhat hard to watch and it was not really consistent, it seemed like the director couldn't really figure out his own unique style so he switched back and forth with shots, for instance in the first sequence with the helicopter as well as the part where wright escapes from the resistance people and Connor, to the rest of the action in the end. The inconsistent visual style and camera made it a little bit hard to watch at times and was annoying, but still the scenes were very good The writers didn't fully explain John Connor's back story and how he is so revered by people like Reese and the resistance people. I know some of the back story was supposed to come from the old terminators and the story takes place in the middle of the resistance, not at the beginning right after judgment day or at the end, but still as a stand alone movie that is not titled terminator 4, but a more original and unique terminator salvation, they need to tell more back story about john Connor so it can stand alone without seeing the other terminator movies. I was disappointed that Conner wasn't really the main character and the writers did not do justice to Bale's acting ability. The writing of Connor's part seemed pretty shallow and he wasn't a real developed character.
The acting was overall solid in my opinion, and some plot points weren't really developed that well, such as when Blair in that short of a time falls in love with the machine Marcus Wright. I know he saved her life and that is a big part and they spent 2 whole days together that we didn't really see on the way to the resistance camp, but it still seemed somewhat undeveloped how they got to that point.
The little references to the previous terminators were nice, such as Kyle Reese's first words and Connor's I'll be back. The Arnold part where they superimposed his face onto the guy was the low point, where it was clearly computer generated and that was the lone exception in what was otherwise a movie filled with amazing special effects in my opinion, i could hardly notice them.
Overall it was a very good movie, extremely entertaining, but i think the writing and directing really held it down a little bit and they had some good actors like Ironside and Bale, but they really didn't favor their acting abilities with the writing. It was a lot of yelling and screaming and some stuff that we saw in the previews, but the movie seemed to rely more on visuals than the dialogue, which brought it down a little bit.
Definitely a great terminator installation far and away better than 3 just completely massacres the 3rd movie out of the water and really i enjoyed it as much as or more than the first two, but they really can't be compared, since the first two were based more on the suspense of outrunning the terminator, and this was where the humans were more proactive in their roles against the machines.