Just saw it, and I loved it.

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2009)

Let me start off by saying, yes, I am a Terminator fan. Does this film match up to the outright awesomeness of the first two? No. It does, however, run circles around the horribly abysmal Terminator 3.
By now everyone knows the plot outline, so I won't waste time going over it. I will say though, that I am not sure where some critics are seeing this movie. I read one review that stated that there was hardly any action in the film. That's just plain wrong. From the opening of the movie to the final explosion, there is an action beat just about every 10 to 15 minutes.
There are points to the plot that are not revealed in the trailer, and for good reason. I thought the bit of plot introduced at the end of the movie was very cleverly done and tied things together nicely.
One of the high points in the film is actually the visual effects. The CGI looks great, as do the real life prosthetics and machines. From the best that I could tell, all of the T-600 models were actually built. The locales and the backdrops also do a lot to give off a convincing vibe that you are post apocalyptic, although it does not ring out the same tone as the previous Terminator movies. Take Terminator 2 for instance. In the first two minutes you are witnessing an all out war between the machines and the humans. Things are blowing up, people are getting shot, and you immediately get the feeling that the humans are fighting for survival.
This leads me to one of my two main gripes about the film. First, you really don't feel at any time that the resistance is in any danger. Yeah, they fight, but it doesn't really feel bleak, like the human race is on the edge of extinction. Maybe that was by design, due to the resistance having hope based on some intel they found, but it just didn't sit well with me. And the second thing that bothered me was the acting overall. Now again, maybe it was by design, but everyone in the resistance seemed pretty at ease after seeing the world go up in flames and being wiped out by machines. I will say though that the actor that plays Reese, Anton Yelchin, did an amazing job in replicating Michael Biehn's portrayal of Kyle Reese in the first film. From the way he pronounces things to his mannerisms, he is pretty spot on.
With all of that being said, I had high hopes for the film and it did not disappoint. Sure, I would of liked it to be Rated R, but I don't feel that it broke the film. It went a long way in redeeming the series after the huge let down with the third film. There is supposedly going to be two more films to to complete a second trilogy. If they do go through with it, hopefully we will get to see the post apocalyptic world that we came to know in the first two films.