Disastrous

Rating: 2/10 (24 August 2014)

"Im open to all those things, if its True Lies, Terminator, a well-made Terminator the last one was awful. It tried hard, not that they didn't try, the acting and everything. It missed the boat." – Arnold Schwarzenegger on Terminator 4.
This review contains spoilers (if that's even possible)
First of all, who the heck is McG? No one knows. He directs TV series, and one other movie. McG itself sounds like a terminator. At what point did the film makers look at his filmography and decide "Yes. Yes, this is the man we need to direct a movie as important as Terminator 4″?
If you are a die-hard Terminator fan, watch this movie expecting to be disappointed you will still be disappointed.
I've seen all of the terminator movies. The original was fantastic, and the second only expanded on the brilliance of the first. T3 was pretty damn poor but no where near as crap as this installment.
The atmosphere that James Cameron and Stan Winston had created for the first 2 films in the franchise was really cool. I think that was the key component along with consistency and approach that gave the Terminator film it's unique style and attractiveness. It's metallic-blue overlay, infused with creepy whines of music and heart pounding edge of your seat suspense was what really created this secondary reality if not for only an hour long. It made us have a connection to these characters. A sense of believability in what was really going on. But it was those elements that were able to harness the inner workings of this dark dreamland. In essence the first two Terminators were projected nightmares in a sense, as if you were running and running, but no how fast you ran, the shadowy figure on your toes just keeps closing in. THAT is what made those films so captivating.
Within 10 minutes of the title shot, this movie fired off one of THE BIGGEST Clichés IN WESTERN FILM. "It's too quiet in here (dramatic pause) It's like they're waiting for us" Seriously now! Is this the best writing that Hollywood can come up with? If this was an attempt at humour it failed just like the rest of this movie.
Giant Robots!!! Loud noises!!! Almost all of the battle sequences in this movie played out like a stylized ripoff of Transformers. There were big walking robots, big robot sound effects, big robot guns and aircraft, big robots riding the robot aircraft, motorcycle robots, robots that launched other robots from their feet They even had little stabby robots that swam around in the water. And they all looked like something out of a cheesy mecha flick. All glossy and pointy looking. These are not the cold, machined gun metal designs that set this series apart from all the others. The dark, nightmare vision from the future in T1 and 2 is nowhere to be seen; it's been replaced by some dumpy-looking CGI plain landscape.
The informative and useful character development that occurred in the first two films have been replaced by chase scenes in order to show how 'cool' our heroes are. Because of this, we end up carring about none of them. Even John Coner. He's just so dull. The dialouge is terrible. So terrible, in fact, that it becomes funny. At one point in the movie our human/terminator hybrid hero turns on a caset or something that plays some cheesy music ( that coincidently just so happens to be the same music that Marcus' late brother likes) to which Kyle Reese asks "What's that?" He is never told, but five minutes later refers to the mysterious phenomenon as music. There's also an exeptionally cringeworthy camp fire scene that I can't be bothered to trash. This is just a minor plot hole compared to numerous others. I mean, why couldn't Skynet just kill Reese instead of engaging in an overly complicated plan to use him to lure Conner INTO THEIR BASE so that they can unlease a naked CGI Arnie (which was a real slap in the face for fans), who just happens to be a new brand of "Throwanators". These machines, rather than crush puny humans in an instant, decide to throw them around the place. These are nothing compared to the bandana-wearing, trigger-happy Fattynators, who take pride in shooting their own feet.