A Different Terminator Movie

Rating: 6/10 (8 August 2009)

Like many, I'm a huge fan of the first 2 Terminator movies. There is no doubt at James Cameron's skilled work at making movies (wish he'd make more). Terminator Salvation succeeds where Termintor 3 fails, in my opinion. The first 2 movies were Cameron's babies, and unfortunately, Terminator 3 was just of a rehash of the first 2 and definitely not done with Cameron's skill, which made it nearly unwatchable.
But, since Terminator 3 was made, and the plot of the war actually happening was opened up, even if the timelines were different, even through all the obvious continuity flaws of the 3rd movie, if a 4th movie were to be made, it would have to be a DIFFERENT movie. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a BETTER movie. This film has a different feel and look than the ones before it. It had to be different to show the war. Gone is the time-travel motif of the first 3 movies. There are obvious nods to Mad Max, the recent War of the Worlds, Transformers. As others have said, the acting and script could've been better, but it wasn't terrible. There are some unintentionally corny lines and some predictable moments, especially borrowed from other movies. The Marcus Wright character could've been better written and developed (what exactly did he do to be put on death row?), but I did like the concept of it. There is CG abound, which can be a good thing and a bad thing. CG is becoming more and more realistic. Much more in this film is probably CG than we realize. It makes the movie look more sci-fi than real. Not to mention that it looks like that human technology had advanced after Judgement Day. One of the main continuity flaws I saw was that they never mentioned the "rubber-skinned" terminators from the first movie; they just went straight to the Arnie-cyborg (excellent CG cameo, by the way).
Despite its flaws, this movie succeeds in being a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action flick. Even though it doesn't have the skill of the first 2 movies, it's still watchable, especially more watchable than the 3rd movie. The effects and action sequences are top notch. The point of this movie is to have fun watching it. Christian Bale obviously shines. There are also great nods to the first two films. John Connor can still hack into a computer. There is Sarah Connor's (Linda Hamilton's) photo, John listening to his mom's cassette tapes, and even John listening to Guns n Roses.
In the end, even though the script and acting aren't up to par with the previous films, this movie is still fun to watch, not as ridiculous as the 3rd movie, and can still be enjoyed as a popcorn muncher.