Good guys in a truck, baddies on motorbikes...it's all gone wrong.

Rating: 6/10 (11 June 2009)

The short scenes showcasing the 'future' in the first two Terminator films were some of the most captivating of the series. While I personally thought that what we saw in the first two films was enough to set the scene for those two movies and I never really wanted to see any more of the future world; it's clear that there is enough opportunity for a movie there, and it was inevitable that we'd get a Terminator movie set in the future eventually. It would have been nice if it were a better than this one, however. The film begins in 2003 and we see a man executed, before donating his body to some kind of cybernetic research project. The film then fast forwards to 2018, and the main plot, of course, focuses on John Connor; a soldier that has grown up to fulfil the destiny prophesised in the earlier films. Connor has discovered that Skynet are working on a new Terminator model, the T-800; just around the same time that the executed prisoner from 2003 has woken up in the future. The resistance has discovered an 'off switch' for Skynet's systems and hopes to win the war with it; but soon after Connor learns that his father, Kyle Reese, is number one on Skynet's most wanted list and sets out to find him.
The plot sounds complicated but it really isn't; very little thought went into the storyline and it's clear that director "McG" felt he could wing it on action scenes alone. The most disappointing thing in this respect is the character of John Connor. They went to the trouble of hiring one of the best movie stars of the moment in Christian Bale; and then completely wasted him by making his character an absolute non-entity. We learn barely anything about him other than the fact that he doesn't like the machines; but he just comes across as a paranoid technophobe. This is even more unbelievable considering that we're supposed to believe this is the same character that cried at the end of Terminator 2 when Arnie descended into the melting pot. The only character that really provides any interest is Marcus Wright; the convict killed at the start of the film and later resurrected. His story is much more interesting and I think he even has more screen time than Christian Bale; making me think that producers were just scared to have an unknown actor at the top of the bill. Which is a shame because Sam Worthington is the only person involved in this film to come out with any credit.
The disappointment of the characters is matched by the incompetent writing with regards to the story. The plot features a great many coincidences and much of it doesn't make sense. There's no real imagination on display either and the film really fails to inspire the viewer. Thankfully, the saving grace comes in the form of the action sequences - which are loud, brash and well orchestrated. There are plenty of them too, which helps to ensure that the film is at least mostly entertaining. Of course, the special effects are impressive...but I can't say too much about that since good effects are simply the norm for big budget action films these days. The actor they brought in to play Kyle Reese is a bit of a disappointment. Of course, the character is much younger than he was in The Terminator; but are we really supposed to believe that weedy Anton Yelchin would grow up to be Michael Biehn? It also has to be said that the vision of the future presented in this film is far too clean and not enough like the hopeless and dirty scenes shown in the original Terminator films. There are a few nods to the older and superior movies in the form of quotes and music; but it really just feels like a young kid mimicking his big brother. All the disappointment is eventually capped off by the ending...which is just mind-bogglingly stupid. Overall, this film is a very disappointing mess. An entertaining mess for sure...but the Terminator series ended in 1991 for me.