Judgment Day for the Terminators

Because Terminator Salvation was such a letdown and because it was followed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, an even worse and harsher and bigger letdown/piece of shit, I felt the need to review something good. However, I am currently living in Hong Kong, where movies are released up to months later than they are in Canada, and so Transformers 2 is still the hot movie in theatres. Boo-urns. And so I busted out my Terminator trilogy, watched them, and will now review them, because they kick ass.

Yes, even the third one! Screw you!

But then again, what can honestly be said about these movies? They're landmarks, trademarks and filled with skidmarks, the on-road kind, not the in-underwear so often discovered in 12 year old boys laundry hampers. These flicks set the scale for robot/sci-fi, using both symbolism and thriller aspects in order to breakaway from the straight out action style of so many futuristic movies you see nowadays. See Terminator Salvation for the most recent example of this.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who would one day become Governor of California and subsequently run it financially into the sewer, stars as the T-800, and damn, he never fails to be awesome. There's just something about hanging out with a humanoidic robot that basically won't die and kicks so much ass that seems cool to me. John Connor was the luckiest 12 year old in the world. Well, and also the most unfortunate I guess, but still.
Of course, in the first one, the T-800 is the bad guy and John Connor isn't alive, but The Terminator really broke the genre when it was released. There's something about that James Cameron touch I guess. Schwarzengger's villain became as equally feared among my generation growing up as Darth Vader, Jack Nicholson's Joker, and Jaws. Personally, I think it was because it was a movie about the future that took place today. Well, like 25 years ago now, but you get the idea.
Then came T2: Judgment Day. You know, I've seriously never met anyone who didn't like this movie. Easily in the top action films of all time. It is so innovative, so exhilarating, and so incredibly filmed. The acting on all ends is great, my personal favorite being the psychologist who later cameos in T3. But most importantly I think, is the way that this movie took its predecessor's villain, made him a hero like so many movies had done before it, but actually made it believable. I truly bought and continue to buy that the T-800 was now sent back in time by John Connor in order to protect John Connor from the T-1000, an even more dangerous Terminator. I loved how the dude who played the T-1000 is like a pansy compared to Arnie, and yet the whole movie you can buy that Arnie's ass is totally getting whooped. The R-rated violence is appropriate and works because of the depth of the film. With such serious content matter as the end of the world, a little gratuitous violence is simply expected. Judgment Day is the action film that got everything right.
T3: Rise of the Machines, in no way as good as the first two, is still a pretty great film. What it lacks is this: use of the amazing score that the first two and even Salvation incorporated, the opening title sequence that again, even Salvation incorporated, and a villain worth being afraid of. Terminatrix? Come on, that's stupid, and so was she. But let me offer this; the action in this movie is terrific, equalling the other two in my opinion. When the huge semi goes full-speed, face first into the pavement? Amazing. Two helicopter crashes into the same building? So awesome. So yes, the third one, like Return of the Jedi, Spider-Man 3, and Back to the Future 3, did not live up to the quality of the first two, and in fact, many would argue that the second installment of each of these series is the best. I would agree except for Back to the Future, first one all the way. So give Rise of the Machines a break, it's simply just not that bad.

The Terminator Series is and will continue to be an important trilogy in the movie making world because frankly, there's never going to be another series like it or as good as it in its genre. Many have tried and will continue to try to copy it, but they'll fail. Terminator did what all time travel movies want to do: actually make sense. When they try to change the future, they actually do. And when something destined to happen changes, it still happens. This is what movies about time travel are meant to be like, because it actually makes sense to the viewer. This series also works because they change the future and travel through time by barely showing you the future or the changes made in the past. Because of this, Terminator remains a believable albeit ridiculous idea.

Hasta La Vista Baby

"So that's what death tastes like": a review of Terminator Salvation

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.