A completely unnecessary and irrelevant entry into the Terminator franchise

Rating: 3/10 (2 July 2009)

Minor spoilers follow:
As a technical achievement, Terminator Salvation is a competently produced movie. The sets, props, and costumes look great, the CGI is smoothly blended, the stunts are well performed, etc.
However, as a chapter in the Terminator mythology, TS is a complete failure. Quite simply, it doesn't matter. By the end of the movie, virtually nothing is gained, nothing is changed. Stuff gets blown up, some minor characters die, some major characters suffer some injuries and some angst, but nothing substantial happens.
The movie begins with a pre-Judgement Day flashback of a prison. A death-row inmate named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) sells his soon-to-be corpse to Cyberdyne Industries - who most fans of the franchise already know will eventually produce the artificial intelligences that will become the terminators and Skynet.
Later, Wright inexplicably wakes up, completely confused and with a fragmented memory, in the post-apocalyptic world. In other words, the filmmakers may has well flash a subtitle saying, "This guy is terminator! He doesn't know he's a terminator, but he is; there isn't the slightest doubt!" It's so obvious, and is shown so early, that I don't think these comments meet the definition of "spoilers."
Later, after Wright's, uh, terminator-ness is confirmed, and the audience mulls over the idea a little, there may as well be another subtitle saying, "Skynet is a supercomputer; it isn't going to just forget that it turned a human into a cyborg. What do YOU think that means?"
In addition, there are other flaws. Somehow, Skynet knows that Kyle Reese is a critical target, even though there is no way that could have happened. Also, the two male leads - Christian Bale as John Connor and Sam Worthington as Wright, spend a lot of time posing, preening, staring, grunting, etc., each trying to out-Eastwood one another, but otherwise are fairly unconvincing.
Then again, who knows? Maybe, after a decade into the apocalypse, I might spend all of my time striking my best tough-guy pose with everyone I meet. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
There are several good action scenes, including a five-story tall super robot, with its rider-less motorcycles-of-doom; but, after awhile, it becomes apparent that the plot isn't really going anywhere. Even with the much-criticized Terminator 3, plot points matter. With this movie, a viewer can take a bathroom break at almost any time, and miss nothing important.
All in all, Terminator Salvation is a useful distraction for a few hours, but has none of the appeal of the first two classics, and even lacks the limited "...I didn't see that coming..." appeal of the third.