You and me, we've been at war since before either of us existed.

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2012)

Terminator Salvation is directed by McG and and written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris. It stars Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard and Common. Music is scored by Danny Elfman and cinematography by Shane Hurlbut.
2018 and John Connor (Bale) is a key figure in the Resistance forces waging war against Skynet and their Terminator armies. But when Marcus Wright (Worthington) wanders into the equation it clouds the issues, with both men desperate to establish meaning and answers in the war......
The weight of expectation was massive. Spread over a 25 year period and harvesting 3 films, the Terminator film fan has wanted to desperately view the post Judgement Day war between man and machine. Over to you McG; yep, he who directed Charlie's Angels! Box office wise it's a winner of some magnitude, garnering over $370 million worldwide (over $170 million profit), but critics and franchise fans, perhaps inevitably, were decidedly mixed on its worth to the Terminator universe. It's good for me, a fan also of the series, to come to the film some three years after it was released, where the hype or venom has evaporated and the film has finally found a base footing from which to be judged.
Undeniably it is some way away from the first two Cameron films, lacking the lesser budget sci-fi grit of part one or the mind bending extravagance of part 2. Better than 3 for sure, but that film still has the best ending of all the Terminator movies. Terminator Salvation is a darn great action movie, in fact it's more a great action/war movie that has dashes of Terminator folklore sprinkled along the way. Gone is the pursuer/pursued structure of the previous films, in place now is a tough guys on a mission adventure story, fast paced and full to the brim of plot and barn-storming action set pieces. There's no easy cop out here either, the makers could quite easily have made one long battle movie between Bale's Beefcakes and Skynet's Super Soldiers, but instead they serve up different conflicts at different points of the apocalyptic compass. With many brilliant new additions to the Skynet's army adding spice to the Cyborg laden stew. This is not just an endoskeleton wasteland, it's a land of Hunter-Killer ships, hulking Harvesters, underwater Hydrobots and Terminator motorcycles. The sci-fi, in design and execution, is quite frankly adrenalin pumping.
With the picture set as it is, post the other films in the series, it does have a huge waft of freshness on its side. Yes there's dutiful nods to the past, courtesy of one liners, music and a familiar face in the finale, these are welcome and needed by the fans in fact, but McG's movie stands tall on its own two feet. No lazy remake here, even if the staging of the final dust-up is a series copy. The writers have also imbued the story with darkness, it's as fun as it gets on a visceral level at times, but there's a bleakness, a sadness, constantly hovering in the dry air. It's also a neat trick having John Connor, the future saviour of mankind, not be this super-human guy loved by all, he carries emotional baggage, obviously, but to some of his superiors he is viewed as edgy, perhaps even a hindrance to the war effort? It's a nice thread and harks back to the young Connor's arrogant streak in T2.
Cast performances have also proved to get mixed reviews, but now the dust has died down it appears that nobody is bad here. Bale and Worthington make for a nice muscular pairing without pushing the acting boat out, Bloodgood holds her own in kicking ass and dialogue exchanges and Yelchin, who I initially struggled to accept as someone who is going to blossom into the moody and magnificent Michael Biehn version, does a decent enough job of setting Rees up for his inevitable fate. Outside of these main performers, though, nobody gets much of a look in, which in the case of Bryce Dallas Howard's wife of John Connor is a shame. The writers have erred here, for surely she is a critical component of the John Connor character arc? Still, we do at least get a fun, but staple, cameo from Michael Ironside. Terminator Salvation's worst mistake, mind, is to not finish 10 minutes earlier than it did, where the build up and set up for potential sequels is dampened considerably by a mushy tack on sequence, a chance to keep things moody and ambivalent is wasted, seemingly for the popcorn munchers pleasure.
It was never going to be an across the board winner, especially for Terminator's staunch fans. Only Cameron coming back could have maybe brought about the film everyone wanted? But this is still a ripper of an action movie, with enough brains and balls to standalone. Awesome Blu-ray too! 7.5/10