Terminator Salvation

(THIS IS A REQUESTED REVIEW)

“This is not the future that my mother warned me about…” And that’s true to an extent. This isn’t exactly the future that was pictured in the previous films either. Though, maybe that future is yet to come in a 5th installment – who knows. Terminator Salvation is a pretty solid action flic that stays true to the first two films while still providing something new to the table.

SYNOPSIS:
Ok, so I’m going to have to re-cap some things for those of you out there who have never seen the Terminator series. This might get a bit confusing but bear with me. The first movie, Terminator, John Connor sends back the man from the future named Kyle Reese to help protect his mother and to also get his mother pregnant (I mean, we’d all like to be born if we knew we were destined to be heroes right…?) The reason she needed protection is that in the future, the machines send back what is known as the T-800 to kill Sarah Connor and to stop her from ever having her son John Connor. Kyle succeeds, does the deed with Sarah, and dies saving her – the end. Enter the 2nd installment, T2: Judgment Day. Sarah has had John Connor and low and behold those pesky machines (aka: Skynet) from the future still want that bastard dead – so they send back a new and improved Terminator, the T-1000. (he basically can morph into whatever he wants but he tends to lean towards the sharp objects). The future John Connor figures this out and sends back his own Terminator that was re-programmed to protect himself. All goes the way it should, the bad guys lose and John Connor’s character survives and we think that everything is a.o.k. Well then they decided to make a 3rd installment which only solidified that you can’t change the future and bascially we’re told that the first two movies just prolonged the inevitable. Which leads us up to our 4th film in the franchise, Terminator Salvation. John is all growd up now and is trying to do what his mother meant for him to do – which is to fight the good fight. This of course is after all the bombs have gone off and Judgment Day has come and gone. The machines are ruling the planet and picking the humans off one by one. It’s up to the resistance and the help of a mysterious new character to infiltrate Skynet and to make a dent in the machines’ plans. (honestly, if you need any more of a summary after that, I’d like for you to bend over and have someone kick you in the ass – just buy into it would ya … jeeze!)

PROS of the FILM:
Yes well right away let’s just say that I’m completely satisfied with the story and the way the whole plot worked well with the initial idea set fourth by the previous films. To me this was going to either make or break the entire movie. I’m not sure if I bought into the character of Marcus as much as I would’ve liked, but that’s not the point. The OVERALL plot of the film was in tact and seemed to work and I give the writers credit for doing so. This is one franchise that I’m sure lots of people are afraid to touch because of how the first two films especially left their mark on cinematic history and have really set the tone of what is to come for future endeavors.

Next I’ll say that the look of everything in the movie was pretty awesome. I love how McG (yes, that’s the director) decided to keep everything basic and torn down as if the bombs had just gone off only a few days ago (technically it was 14 years ago but who’s counting) and that everyone was barely scrapping to get by on what they could find. Lots of deserted areas and beat up buildings – it all  just looked really cool. I know that sounds cheesy for a critic to say, but I really don’t know how else to explain it. I do however have a CON that goes along with this, but I’ll save that for the appropriate area, duh. Getting back to the point, let’s delve into some things that were awesome looking …

#1 – practically everything that Skynet manufactures looks BA. No wonder they are kicking humanity’s ass … they’ve got good lookin shit! Whether it’s the terminators, (T-600, T-700, and the famous T-800 – Ahhnold) … the flying machines, the motorbike Terminators, the big machines with big ol’ guns, and even the fish Terminators that sort of remind me of sentinels from the Matrix … the humans were screwed from the start! If you’re gonna fight, you better be fighting with good looking shit! (ha – crackin myself up there)
#2 – loved that the humans were using old existing military equipment that somehow wasn’t taken over by Skynet. A10 Warthogs flying against the superior Skynet flying things was a great comparison of what the humans were dealing with. I mean hell, the A10’s aren’t hardly used anymore even today are they? Just thought that was a really nice touch.
#3 – all the destruction and the look of the vast landscape of nothingness. (as i’ve already mentioned before)
#4 – where the rebels were hiding – though we didn’t get to see much of it – it felt more real than I was expecting. they didn’t have all this advanced equipment, but were held up in bunkers and what I would describe as half way houses or hostels … that was interesting and probably a good move to make it look like they were struggling to survive.
(the list could go on, but I digress)

I don’t want to sound like a broken record or anything – but the casting in the movie was pretty spot on – though I’ve got more cons that go into this than Pros … I had to mention the excellent casting of Anton Yelchin who played young Kyle Reese. He was perfect for this role not only because he looked the part but the fact that he really resembled his son John Connor from the 2nd movie – a lot. Anton can also act very well and so I’m sure it was a no brainer. Seems like this kid is going to be getting more and more roles as he has had 2 big movies this summer already.

Action, action and more action make up this movie. There are some slow points, but they are so minimal that you never really seem to be bored through out the whole entire film. Add in the fact that it runs under 2 hours and you can see why I never looked at my watch – which is a good thing. If you throw in just the right amount of suspense then you have a good combination for what I like to call ENTERTAINMENT. And that’s exactly what this movie is.

Oh, and if you haven’t downloaded it yet – get the song “The Day the World Went Away” by the Nine Inch Nails. This song just by itself playing in the trailer was more than enough reason for me to go see this movie. It fit the trailer so well and really gets you pumped to see the film! (I’m actually listening to it right now … )

CONS of the FILM:
Ok, I have a bunch of CONS for this movie surprisingly, but let me just say that the CONS don’t outweigh the ability of a good ENTERTAINING movie. Entertainment to me is cause for big points – and I think all directors/producers should take account for that. With that said, let me get into the Cons …

The future is not what we thought it was … or at least what the first two films depict. If you remember, the flash forwards that we see of the future in both Terminator and T2 are dark, dismal, and over run by machines. Seems like the humans are running every which way like scared little mice and the machines are just ripping them apart one by one. Well not in this future. In this future we see something different … and aren’t really given a big explanation as to why. The most I can make out of it – is that it’s not the future that we are given in the previous films, that this future is the predecessor of what’s to come. Now this is a minor flaw and probably not even valid enough to consider a Con, but damn it – if you’re going to tell a story at least let us in on why it is the way it is, rather than just a date and a kid saying to the question of what happened here, “Judgment Day…”

Moving on, I have to say this is something that bothered me quite a bit – why the hell would you use an actor like Christian Bale and really not emphasize more on him. It really seemed to me that the movie was geared towards the character of Marcus more than it was about the Resistance and John Connor. Sure there are parts in there where we share emotions with John and feel for him, but the movie’s main focus is all about Marcus – which to me was the wrong direction. And by god we all know by now that is just a bad thing to do – we should always go by which direction I deem worthy at all costs! Seriously though, when you watch this movie, I’m sure you will think that Christian has a lesser of a role than what Marcus does in the film. I would’ve liked to had seen John grow up in a flashback – watch him become the soldier that he is. Watch him earn the respect of everyone that follows him as the “chosen one”.

Another small Con, is why would you enlist the help of a great actress such as Bryce Dallas Howard and not use her to her full potential? This girl has an amazing talent and was not well spent in the movie. We finally get to see Kate Connor in a heroic role, but are sold short of anything that she might’ve been able to give. Not only that, but she’s pregnant and we never see John or Kate even mention having a child or even somewhat care about having a child. It just seemed like there were elements both with John’s character and Kate’s character that could’ve used a bit more story telling and character revamp to help push the overall drama of the movie, but McG was too into his explosions to care about any of the details like that…

Oh but I’m not done, I’m still on my acting rant. The entire cast didn’t seem to act how I would’ve thought they would – other than John and Marcus in a few scenes. Other than those couple times in the movie, it seemed as if everyone was almost in a state of “I don’t give a fuck…” and all their faces seemed the same with this blank stare across their face. I understand if a machine has a blank stare because they don’t have feelings, but I mean come on! These people should be experiencing anguish and terror, and really good raw emotions in this time of desperation and it just seemed like they were all lacking.

I know I said I liked the plot and overall story, but I found myself missing the real Cinematic touch of James Cameron when the movie really got rolling. I don’t know if it was the lack of the whole time travel aspect or the piecing together of the overall puzzle of the first two films – but it just seemed like this movie wasn’t near as much of a brain teaser as the others. Which is not really a fault in of itself, I just thought I should mention it for good measure. It also leads me into my next discussion …

Why did it seem like the plot was so linear? Maybe because it was?! I’m sorry but if you think this is a spoiler coming up then you are just dumb. But Marcus is a Terminator. You’ve already seen that shown in the movie trailers and it’s not a big twist like they try and make it seem like in the movie. Now maybe this is a fault of mine for always watching trailers, but hell – if it’s on TV – pretty much 3/4 of America has seen it and know that he’s a damn Terminator. Big whoopity dooo! I think that if they had played the trailers without ever showing Marcus, and just focus more on Christian Bale and the whole John Connor thing – that the aspect of this “other” character would’ve been much more intriguing and a lot better to follow along with and then we’d get slapped in the face by this big “oh shit – he’s a TERMINATOR!” type of reaction.

Ok and lastly, this is supposed to be the Machine’s time of rule right? Judgment Day happened, people died all over the world and Skynet is basically kicking ass … then why is it that it’s so easy for a kid to shoot right at a well weapon-ed and deadly accurate machine and kill it rather than the opposite happening? Why is it that John Conner can sneak into Skynet and the whole facility is filled with a bajillion Terminators and the machines send in 2 Terminators to kill one man? It just seemed all to convenient for the humans to prevail in this movie. I never once seemed on the edge of my seat for any of the human characters except for when the big machine was shooting at them and the little water Terminator things were after John. Other than those two times, I never felt like the human wasn’t going to win over the machine. And quite frankly this was a big disappointment for what year this was and the setting of the movie. There should’ve been tons of Terminators just swarming the wastelands – looking for the humans, killing them off one by one. Instead we never really see that – its seems like the Terminators and Skynet in general is just happy as can be locked up in their house probably knitting something cute for their next creation …

SUMMARY:
So in closing, is it better than Terminator 2 – no. Is it better than Terminator 3 – yes. Is it better than the first Terminator – maybe. Should you see it? If you are a fan of the Terminator franchise I’d suggest you see it. If you are a fan of action, then definitely see it. If you are expecting it to be this movie where Christian Bale just goes in kicking ass – you might be surprised. I don’t know what I was really expecting with this movie, obviously since James Cameron didn’t do it we can’t expect it to be as great as what he came up with – but at least it was a good continuance of the story and leaves it so if someone wanted to helm yet another Terminator – there’s a possibility that they could.

FINAL MOVIE RATING: 7.5/10

~ by phoenixwave on May 22, 2009.