It's not the end of the world as you know it!

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2009)

I truly believe in McG's commitment to the Terminator franchise and to this project. Propelled by the desire, not only to honour the franchise but also to endow his career with the kind of Batman Begins, franchise-revitalising boost that Christian Bale would surely provide, how could this possibly be a bad movie?
Well, in fairness, it isn't. It's a really good picture and a fun way to spend two hours. But, has McG succeeded in taking things back to their gritty roots? Were all his efforts to force his cast and crew to read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' in the hope of capturing a truly bleak, unforgiving post-apocalyptic future worthwhile?
Of course not. It's McG and he's a plonker.
Yes, as assured as the cast are, as wonderful as the sets and even to a point, the story are what you basically have here is a bunch of beautifully coiffured and made-up lipstick commandos throwing heroic shapes in a slightly litter-strewn desert while some robots that look a bit like Arnie fire miniguns very, very inaccurately at them.
But what about Skynet? I hear you say. Haven't the machines taken over? Isn't humanity on the bones of it's arse?
Well yes and no. You see,life in McG's future really isn't that bad. Basically, the rule of thumb is: if you see/hear a really loud, silver machine coming towards you, run like f**k. Other than that, you can basically just carry on as normal. The buses don't run anymore but if you have a hunt about there are some pretty nice cars lying around with petrol still in them. So don't worry, okay?
Oh and for all you vain ladies out there, McG's future still has plenty of good hairdressing salons open for business (evidently).
Seriously though, Salvation, apart from it's certificate 12A tameness is spot on. The cast are excellent with a reasonable balance between eye-candy and solid acting and the set pieces are universally thrilling. Although, I should warn my hero Christian Bale that if he plays it any more intense he is going to push himself into self parody.
Salvation for all it's Charlie's Angels in the future-ishness is far superior to Rise of the Machines and personally I feel that an Arnie cameo would have wrecked things as only Arnie in his latter days could. As it stands, his digital appearance is a uniquely thrilling moment that almost makes up for the distance the franchise has travelled from it's dirty, downbeat first instalment.
Provided we make peace with the fact that Hollywood simply doesn't do films like Terminator 1 anymore, then this is as good an action film as any of the current generation.
But don't expect another Batman Begins.