Scepticism was abounding when I first heard that they were making a sequel to James Cameron’s Terminator series, especially when I learned that Schwarzenegger wasn’t returning. mean, it really just seemed pointless to make one of these flicks without him. And McG as director? The music video/O.C. guy? Come on... But then I saw the trailer, and my mind was totally flipped.
Batman as John Connor?! It looked amazing am I wrong? Plus a kick-ass title like Terminator Salvation... shoot, this movie had guaranteed gold oozing out of it like hot magma poured over a T-800 model. But like 300, Spider-Man 3 and Watchmen before it, too much hype can leave a dude disappointed.
Let’s start at the beginning: this movie is obvious. They literally give you the twist in the first 5 minutes of the movie! Now I’m no professional filmmaker, but come on... there had to be a better way to introduce that Sam Worthington’s character was going to be a Terminator, did they really have to give it away right off the bat? And its predictability doesn’t end there folks, no, they also have to go for the whole John Connor (i.e. J.C. i.e. Jesus Christ) sacrificing himself deal with cross motifs saturating the entire film. Don’t get me wrong, I love religious symbolism but don’t shove it in my face. Basically, the flick has weak story telling, with a side of robot love story that makes for good action but boring ideas.
But speaking of the action, it’s amazing. High intensity and unstoppable machinery has made for good movie watching since the 80’s when Kyle Reese first traveled back in time to protect Sarah Connor in the first Terminator, and need we even mention T2? Only one of the greatest action movies ever made to this day?... The action in this movie matched its predecessors in my opinion.
The acting was great with the exception of Sam Worthington who apparently had no idea what accent his character was supposed to have. But Christian Bale, Bryce Dallas Howard and Helena Bonham Carter knocked it out of the park, and Anton Yelchin (the dude from Star Trek) was awesome. This guy could have Shia LaBeouf’s career without the drunkenness and car accidents no problem if he keeps making the right film choices. Bonham Carter did an especially good job near the end when Skynet disguises itself as her character, it was a chilling scene.
Despite the fact that all of the Terminator’s in this movie looked great (especially Worthington’s Terminator look and the motorcycle-bots), there were way too many scenes where the CGI looked like they’d just run out of time to make it look as good as today’s standards allow. And remember how I said that the Governator didn’t show up for Episode 4? Not so! Only once you see him you really wish he didn’t make an appearance because he’s completely CGI’d, and even though they try to make him look like the T1’s T-800 model, you just know the whole time that he isn’t actually there because he looks like a video game character. I was thanking God when they melted his skin off, but then begging God to make it stop when the really fake looking magma poured all over Arnie’s metallic skeleton because it looked terrible too. I’m sorry McG, but I saw Star Trek and Transformers and there’s no excuse for CGI that looks like it was made 5 years ago. With the way a lot of this movie looked, the rest of it should have been equal if not better, and it let me down.
Danny Elfman did the great score with returning Terminator theme, and Shane Hurlbut , a crappy movie regular, actually did some amazing camera work, with a helicopter scene near the beginning of the film that certainly deserves a second look as it Connor running into a helicopter, taking off, flying, getting shot down, crashing and escaping. Really cool.
So essentially, this movie is in the middle, with really friggin’ strong qualities and really friggin’ weak qualities. It moved too quickly, both in its story pace (the flick’s shorter than 2 hours and could have used more development) and in production so that I, as the viewer, might actually have believed that Arnold lived up to his promise when he said, “I’ll be back.” At least John Connor said it.
Terminator Salvation finishes with 2.5/6 from me. Here's what The Weekly Re-Brew had to say.
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