This movie can't be the same as the older ones? Why.

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2009)

I don't think this film has any spoilers but just to be safe.
This installment of the Terminator series had a lot going for and against it in my humble view. Most of the mythology means that John Connor's roll was mostly defined and the state of the world was also quite solidified too. I have seen copy that suggests that the world view presented is to take on the effects the older films had on the time-line. At least this gives some flexibility to the screenplay.
That said where i feel this film fell short was in character development for the supporting cast. Marcus Wright is presented as a death row inmate. This makes an audience member want to see this guy die and not come back. If he were a coma patient or something; anything that made me want to see him survive in some way that would have been the best fix to make this more successful. The introduction and time spent on this new character is what largely mucked up the plot development I feel. The film as it is seems to have a bit of an identity crisis as to who the lead actor is. The Lead was Marcus Wright and the Supporting actor (who also adds credibility to the plot) is John Connor. Is this how it should be... not in my view. John Connor and Kyle Reece should have been the mains because of the father issue and the death row inmate that had an unexplained bout of repentance I feel just needed to be more quickly defined and left as a supporting means to the end of saving Kyle. This is why the "coma patient" whose body is donated to science works best IMO.
Also there was loads of complaining that the Governator was poorly represented here. It wasn't a big leap of faith that the Arnold knock-off could just be an early attempt at the time travel experiments. Besides do you really want to see a sad attempt at passing off the current Arnold as a lookalike for his younger self that was sent back to start this whole mess off in the beginning? Not I that's for sure.
I feel that this movie is very well done and is of course going to have a different feel than the James Cameron films and it shouldn't be forced to be exactly the same. The creative license that that was taken with the story and the feel of the post apocalypse world were taken advantage for the better. If not for the muddy character development and some shortcomings in the direction of the principal actors this film stands as a decent if not good sequel in the Terminator line.