Terminator Salvation by Freelance

Terminator Salvation

Director: McG

Writers: John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris

Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Anton Yelchin

Rating: ** out of *****

Well, it’s that time of the year again. The smell of BBQ propane tanks hit the hot seasonal air, SnoCone stands begin to sell their multicolored frozen treats, and the multiplex cinemas across the nation are packed full of Hollywood’s desperation. With that said, this weekend opens with one of the largest summer blockbuster explosions, Terminator Salvation. In the attempt to continually keep James Cameron’s 1984 cash cow lactating money, director McG has constructed a mindless film. This shouldn’t appear as much of surprise coming from the man that blessed us with not one Charlie’s Angel film, but two. I digress (for the time being), I don’t want to unleash all my anger just yet, and I’m only in the first paragraph.

Before I continue I feel like I need to lay this down, but I’m writing this review (maybe) at a bit of a disadvantage. I never watched Terminator 3. I remember when I was nineteen when the film was released, and at the time I really didn’t want to ruin the nostalgia of two childhood films I grew up with. I already fell for that trap with episode one. Don’t get me wrong, just because I didn’t care to sit through it, doesn’t mean I have any idea what the third one was about. Thank you, IMDB.

The year is 2018; the world is close to seeing the end of all human kind. A resistance is slowly growing and leading the fleet is John Connor (Christian Bale). Skynet, the artificial intelligence network created by Cyberdyne Systems is the futuristic scourge that is seeking to eliminate all human life. This much so far sounds pretty typical for a terminator film.

“Oh, how could I forget?”

Time travel; there can’t be a terminator film without this obnoxious dysfunction. Paradoxes aside, the story still revolves around Skynet attempting to eliminate John Connor. Several events are foretold to Connor in recordings left by his mother, and everything is going to plan until- Enter Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) a prison inmate on death row from the year 2003. He is talked into giving his body to science by Dr. Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter) a delegate of Cyberdyne Systems. Fifteen years passed, Wright wakes to a barren post-apocalyptic Los Angeles and he meets a teenage Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). Connor is seeking to find Reese so he can fulfill his mother’s recordings and to make sure certain events occur. The resistance discovers information about the new T-800 models and that they could switch a captured terminator unit from kill to not kill (more or less). This reminds me of that Futurama episode where Mom (from Mom's Friendly Robot Company) uses a switch to have all robots revolt against their human oppressors. The story moves on to several asinine explosions and ridicules CGI scenes that later brings Connor to discovering Marcus Wright and who he truly is. It is now up to John to decide if Wright is friend or foe and how he is going to save the small bit of humanity that remains.

Terminator Salvation moves like a roller coaster, lots of fast action and there’s a stupid carnie running the operation. To be honest there were a few moments when this film actually worked. The opening development with skynet coming from the future to recruit from the past was intelligent and had me demanding more. Having Christian Bale cast as John Connor had my other eyebrow cocked. Unfortunately, there was some reason his character role was dampened by several under developed characters and unresolved sub plot lines. It seems to make sense why Bale lashed out at that director of photography from his infamous TMZ recording. He wasn’t angry at him, he was pissed that his role (was/may have been) reduced. He was also probably angry because he was in a McG movie. Pretentious remarks aside, the film seemed to have focused more on Sam Worthington’s character than Bale’s. He’s nothing to boast about, his character development seemed overly contrived and his portrayal did not meet the match. Moon Bloodgood plays Blair Williams, a fighter pilot who is shot down and is saved by Marcus Wright. She’s an overall deaf character in comparison to the rest of the movie. She is more or less placed in the film to fill the sexy female role and (sadly) that is about it. Anton Yelchin was interesting to see as the young Kyle Reese. As it may be a surprise to some, he recently portrayed the Russian Starfleet officer, Pavel Chekov in J.J. Abrams Star Trek. I don’t know if it is saying much, but I was pleased with his Kyle Reese more than his Chekov. One person I would have wished to have seen more of was Michael Ironside, who plays the inexorable General Ashdown. I know he’s mostly a character actor, but he’s such an animated looking individual. The greatest section where the film seems to drop the ball is with the lack of development in the large assortment of characters and a weak assessment of a story arch. Other than that the film is a great mind numbing summer blockbuster packed with action, explosions, and computer generated imagery. McG is probably most to blame for the film’s end result, though it most likely did not help having Michael Ferris and John Brancato craft the screenplay. These two are known for their priceless works on films, such as 1995’s The Net, the straight to DVD sequel of same movie, and 2004’s Catwoman. It may seem like I’m being unfair but, this film had a two hundred million dollar budget. Why couldn’t a larger portion of that money been invested with a more accredited filmmaking team than this?

Overall, the film has several critical development problems. It’s loaded with everything a hyper active teen would love but, the Terminator franchise should rise to a little bit higher demographic than this. If you’re a fan of the Terminator series, go ahead and see it, but be forewarned. If you really like Christian Bale, it’s definitely not worth catching; and if you are a fan of McG films, well… then I’m sorry.