I probably won't be back

Rating: 6/10 (25 June 2009)

I could spend ages reeling off all the aftermath / post apocalypse films that Hollywood has produced in the last twenty years. This Terminator takes from many of them. The action sequences were magnificent. The characters, insubstantial. The plot, a hindrance. And there, the review would end.
And yet T1 and especially T2 did so much to innovate action movies. The scenes and dialogue still gently wash around my head today. The idioms of the robot assassin entered our culture.
Terminator Salvation seems to believe its true parents were Matrix, I am Legend and War of the Worlds. Much has been made of Bale, and he is part of the films bastardisation. But there is no question the director has committed the patricide.
This film stands on its own as a reasonable addition to post apocalypse franchise, but not as a Terminator.