This is one of the worst franchise films EVER MADE

Rating: 1/10 (12 December 2009)

Spoiler Alert
As a die hard Terminator fan of the first two movies and a tremendous hater of the third, I figured I'd give this a chance. I went in to the theater with the lowest expectations and it failed to meet them. In fact as a fan of the series, I even felt insulted. This film isn't worth your time.
Terminator Salvation begins on Death Row where Marcus (Sam Worthington) repents that his brother and two cops are dead because of him. He is approached by a Cyberdyne Systems executive (Helena Bonham Carter) to donate his body to their company. He does and in ten minutes, he becomes a pawn in the future war between man and machines. Still with me?
The humans are not really human. NOT led by John Conner (Christian Bale) because he is considered by many to be a false prophet, they fight the war that never seems to end and never seems to have a point. Nevermind that Bale can't decide if he's John Conner or Batman at points and he yells repeatedly as if the everyone is a cinematographer, the writer miss the point on Conner, he is a man haunted by the future and the plot point of him being a "false prophet" is quickly dismissed when he pleads to the "survivors" to not listen to their military leadership.
But what's insulting is the storyline is the Marcus one. First, Marcus encounters Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), who will become the father of John Conner when he is sent to the past. Skynet (the machine supercomputer) targets Kyle Reese for that reason. Unfortunately, they say that the were no records of Conner's father in the first film, only what Conner knows. That is why the terminator is sent BACK THROUGH TIME to kill his mother, but the film decides to say that you can change the past IN THE FUTURE. Getting back to Marcus, who feels guilt for something that no one ever knows why? Tell us, please, but we never know. Marcus meets Conner when a magnetic landmine attaches to him. Conner finds out that Marcus is really a terminator with half a brain, but whole organs. Why would a robot need organs?
Eventually, Conner and Marcus team up to take out Skynet and rescue Reese. Thus is where we see for the first time in the series, Skynet. For twenty five years of build up, Skynet is no scarier than an iPod. Skynet breaks down it's plan to kill John Conner now... in the present. Wasn't the point of sending terminators into the past was to kill him BEFORE he can spark the Human Rebellion? And for that matter, the purpose for Marcus is infiltration. That's why he has organs... but wasn't Skynet sending terminators in for years? Why would she need one with a brain? And THEN MARCUS disobeys and rips out a circuit and becomes his own free person. Which is funny because Skynet made him and it blew up the world, but can't get one of it's own creations to obey? Still with me?
The "powerful" moment of Conner meeting his father was unemotional and the fight in the end are long enough to make me wish Skynet succeeded. Conner's quest to save his father from getting killed so he can go back in time to create him (uh... what?), is more selfish reasons because Conner doesn't want to be unborn (again... what?). Marcus' search for redemption is hallow because we don't know why he feels guilty. The writers told us to he feels remorse, so we must right? That's the insult from the filmmaker and screenwriter. And there was never a feeling of imminent danger and it dragged. How can an action scene drag? MacG found a way. This film could have taken a lesson from Star Trek on time space, but it contradicts itself over and over. Then was nothing new to the action, which the first two brought.
This film uses the classic Terminator lines "Come with me if you want to live," "I'll be back," and "No Fate but what we make for ourselves" with out much sense or drama. The "No Fate" comment concludes the film and it's in there solely because it was in the other films. Why not just add, "All you have to do is decide what to do with the time given to you"? That would fit just as much.
The end is formulaic and predictable, but I'm not sure if any of the actors had a chance. So they get a pass. I'm not sure if Mac G could have saved it, but at least he made a loud movie. This cries out to Alien: Resurrection for help, but even that film had credible moments in it. This one doesn't. Nothing original and nothing that stayed with you when you left the theater. (Resurrection at least had the "other clone attempts scene). It uses the ideas crammed from writers who didn't sit down to think out whether or not it was relevant to the series. It gets a 1 out of 10, only because it made to the screen. You can't just make a sequel because you want to. At least, pay attention to the series. There will be more and I ask again, "why?"