A good effort but where is Arnold Schwarnegger?

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 2014)

I knew from the outset that Salvation wasn't going to be as good as the first two Terminator movies, purely because Terminator is all about Arnold Scharwenegger and this movie didn't feature him. So I was half expecting Salvation to be a bit of a flop.
I have to admit that it exceeded my expectations. It certainly isn't at the level of the originals, but Christian Bale made this movie work with a great turn as John Conner, and the "machines" made up an excellent supporting cast. The inclusion of a half-human half-robot character played by Sam Worthington worked surprisingly well too, and there were decent performances from Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter and Anton Yelchin.
Another thing that helped is how closely the writers stuck to the original stories and mythology of the original movies. Terminator Salvation fleshes out things from Terminator 1 and 2 like the relationship between Kyle Rees and John Connor, the development of the Terminator models, and how Sarah Connor recorded advice for John on a Dictaphone.
A good effort. Now let's hope from the next one they bring Schwarzenegger back properly!