Low expectations = a better film

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 2009)

I can't believe the press about this film, it's really not that bad at all. Obviously it's not going to be as good as the first two films - they were two of the most spectacular and best sci-fi/action movies of all time - but by the time you get to the forth film in a franchise what do you expect? One thing all the bad press has done is lowered our expectations so much this actually comes out as a good movie. I guess it's to do with all the hype surrounding the making of it. People have been really hard on Christian Bale and he really isn't that bad at all here, and like another reviewer said; his on-set out burst is understandable when you see the character he was playing.
It's a dirty gritty film. It tries to give us what Terminator 2 only showed us for a few seconds - the war between humans and the machines they created - and it does an okay job. Personally I think it could have been a bit darker but it wasn't at all bad and certainly a lot better than the comicesque sunshine of Terminator 3 (this film should have been T3). It gives us a wide variety of terminators and even a digitalised Arnie that was so life-like I had to check the cast listing - small terminators, huge Titan like terminators, flying terminator aeroplanes, motorbike terminators, terminators with massive chins, and even terminator fish!! The only thing this film doesn't give us, which is what I personally wanted to see, was thousands of terminators all together marching en masse.
Yeah the plot-line has holes. It had me pondering on the point of it for a while (what so J Conner has to save Reese who has to go back in time to save J Conner who when he grows up has to save Reese who has to go back in time to... so what would happen if we just removed these two people... ahh... OK I understand...) but f**k it... it's an action film, and it's good solid science fiction.
Surely the best film by a pretentious and ridiculously named director ever.. I just hope he either stops making films after this or starts using a proper name... Thanks.