A feast for the senses

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2009)

Just when it seemed that the moribund Terminator franchise had wringed every last drop of blood and plot out its time-shifting story, along comes Terminator Salvation to mine the only untapped vein in the canon â€“ the backstory.
It's easy to be cynical about Hollywood these days, what with the penchant for remaking anything a couple of months old, so you could be forgiven for thinking that this latest installment was a mere ploy to re-boot the whole thing and kick start the cash flow once again. And it may well be that, but Terminator Salvation is much more, and surprisingly so.
Set in the ridiculously near year 2018, after Skynet has become sentient and blasted human civilization to smithereens, it tells the story of John Connor (Christian Bale) and his rise to the position of leader of the resistance. A destiny fueled in no small measure by a series of audio tapes bequeathed to him by his mother Sarah. It's like having your own personal set of Tony Robbins motivational tapes telling you your fate is to become humanity's last and only hope. Talk about setting the bar rather high, but when your mom has seen the future come knocking (literally) son John accepts his destiny with gusto.
Built into the movie's plot is Connor's quest to locate Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), the young fighter destined to become his father in a past time (don't you just love this?), and come to terms with the newly discovered "infiltration unit" named Marcus Wright (Australian Sam Worthington), a criminal sentenced to death in 2003, who signed over his body to science and a laboratory named Cyberdyne Systems.
This is Worthington's movie. He's far and away the best thing about Terminator Salvation, and pretty much carries the story on his back throughout. Whereas most of the cast perform admirably, I can easily think of dozens of actors who could do a serviceable job in the movie's roles, but Worthington breaths a much needed human quality into his character (as called for by the writers), and makes this Marcus Wright's story, not John Connor's.
Director McG (Joseph McGinty Nichol) brings a "have no mercy" approach to the audience, creating a sensory bombardment that is unrelenting and breathtaking. The special effects are simply spectacular, with the sole exception of a couple of the chain-gun toting toaster terminators, who are obviously men in pretty shoddy suits.
Would it be cynical to say we can expect more Terminator movies in the years ahead? Count on it. Not merely because Hollywood's found a new way to breath life into one of their sacred cash cows, but because there are whole new stories to be told about the war and the resistance.
To paraphrase Arnold, "they'll be back".