You know, out of all the films that were coming out this summer, I was, oddly enough, looking most forward to this film, Terminator Salvation. It had a lot of good things going for it; it was finally going to take the film series to the future in a post apocalyptic setting (so many themes and Sci-fi fun can be made from that), put the very talented Christian Bale as John Connor and the underrated Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, and finally was going to tell the story of the war of man vs the machines. I was sooooo looking forward to this movie for the last year, ever since I saw the trailer before seeing The Dark Knight. But then the bad omens started showing up. A few months ago I discovered the film was going to be directed by McG, the guy who did the God awful Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle movie and then even worse, just hours before seeing the movie, I discovered that the writers for Catwoman had done the screenplay for this film. Yet still I said to myself “Oh c'mon it can't be that bad,” unfortunately I was very wrong.
The film first starts out in the year 2003, where a death row inmate named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) is asked to sign a paper to donate his body to Cyberdyne Systems for scientific research. Little is said about why he is going to be executed but he does sign the paper and he is put to death. The film then crosses over into the year 2018 several years after the events of Judgment Day, as seen in the third Terminator film, where John Connor (Christian Bale) and his team of Resistance fighters are on a mission to find secret information on Skynet's plans at an HQ for the machines. After a battle, John Connor escapes as the only survivor, and heads back to his base with the info. Meanwhile amongst the wreckage of the HQ, Marcus Wright rises from the ashes and discovers he's alive and sets out to find other humans. Connor then goes to the resistance HQ to give his report on the mission, stating that the machines are building a new Terminator, the T-800 (Arnie for those who don't know what that is). The HQ then gives a brief statement of their own stating that Connor is number 2 on Skynet's hit list and when Connor asks who's number 1, they say “Some civilian named Kyle Reese.”
First off let me get this off my chest, I'm a HUGE fan of Christian Bale, hell I have man crush on the guy, he's just such an awesome actor! Ever since I saw Batman Begins, and Empire of the Rising Sun I've been a big fan of his films because the thing I really love about his acting style is that he can be dramatic and a bad ass at the same time, and very few action stars can pull both of those off at once (Hugh Jackman is the only other guy I can think of). Unfortunately, one thing I don't like about Bale is that sometimes he has a tendency to over act in his films (Batman voice to name one), in this film he definitely over does it. Throughout the film you can tell he is really trying to show us the leadership and strength of his character but he over does it a lot in various scenes where he yells and screams (not at the photographer this time) to the point that it's almost comical.
A lot of the issues with the acting though, not just with Bale, have to do with the script. Almost every line in the film is no more than 2-3 syllables in length and like an earlier film I reviewed, Wolverine, the film becomes one-liner hell. It's a real shame too because there are a lot of decent actors in this movie besides Bale; Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Worthington (it was his debut but he does an decent job with his role), and hell even Common. But the script SUCKS, so all these actors' talents are heavily wasted in this film.
Another issue I had with this film is that the director, McG, had a weird obsession with explosions. Almost every other scene in this film had a giant explosion or blast in it, and it got so bad after a while that a friend that I was seeing it with actually had to shield her eyes several times because it was such an assault on the senses. There are so many explosions in this film in fact, that even Michael Bay would go “This is even over the top for me.” The whole time I was thinking, “When did this film turn into a theme park ride?” It seemed like McG thought, “More explosions=more grittiness” when in fact it was more like, “More explosions=stupid!”
That said though, the film isn't without some good in it. The visuals are very impressive; whoever worked on the special effects and sets for this film really did a good job of hammering the point home that “The future fucken' sucks!” You really get that feeling of desperation of the people living in this time, and the struggle of this war. Also the battle scenes, when they aren't too riddled with over use on the explosions, are awesome too. The opening and closing scenes were fun to watch as well.
In the end however, even though it was better than Wolverine, this film was still a huge disappointment. So much potential is wasted during this film due to bad directing and bad script writing. The saddest part is that I read a prequel book to this movie that gave the stories to each of the characters in the film and each one is very interesting (Terminator Salvation: From the Ashes is the title btw, highly recommended) and the film was supposed to touch on each these characters' stories but they never do. *sigh* So much wasted talent here but hopefully Christian Bale redeems himself in another movie I'm looking forward to, Public Enemies, hopefully it's not as dissapointing at least . I guess the lesson learned here is never trust a film that is going to be directed by a guy who describes his name in three letters (In the opening credits he mentions “directed by McG” twice, vain much?). I guess now it's only fitting that I conclude this review with an altering of a one liner from the film series in an “Ahnold” accent.
“McG you ahr TERMINATED!” Oh and “Who is yohr Dahdy and whaaht does he do?” oh wait wrong movie.
I personally loved the film. I am a huge Terminator Nerd and got hyped from the very beggining with a friend of mine who is also a huge fan. We researched the movie, keeping our distance from spoilers, and things went downhill from there. As you mentioned, McG at the directors chair and the writers of Catwoman writing this script.... Our hopes for this film dropped severley. We were still giddy to see a Terminator film on the big screen for the first time, and that kept us a little open minded.
A week after it opened, we payed Matinee price and went to see it. Boy were we thrilled. Though I do admit our minds are clouded by how much we love Terminator, we thought it was great. Sitting in our seats and listening to Danny Elfmans triumphant theme, only to be blasted away by the famous "DUN DUN DUN, DA DA" at the end. It was really a good experience.
I agree with what you said about the acting. Sam Worthington and Christian Bale, both gave pretty good performances. However I do feel they should have just focused on one of the characters, as personally I felt just when you were getting into ones character they yanked you right into the others' story.
I wasn't too impressed by the action sequences, as James Rolfe(a critic I listen to) had stated since everything is already destroyed and in ruin, you don't really feel the impact that all of this destruction is causing, as opposed to T3 where everything we know and can relate to is being blown apart and ripped to shreds. The explosions as you said, did tend to get annoying at times, but I reminded myself about the old sequences in the beginning of the Cameron movies, and how plentiful and huge the explosions were in that.
My two complaints about this film are (as me and my friend both agree) 1.With all of those teases and glimpses we got of the future in previous films, we wanted a more chaotic and desperate situation like that, we feel as though they could have made this a solid war movie and really touched upon what eveyone went through(which is why I also agree with your statement about the lack of morals).
2.This seemed more like a Tribute than an actual film, and thats not what I wanted to see, I wanted to see a new and perhaps great addition to the Terminator saga. One of the things we loved is how they put in little things that big fans would get, similar to Star Trek (Marcus teaching Kyle Reese the strap on the gun trick as seen in the first one). They also did great at just little nods here and there, most noticable in the climax. In some instances they had shot for shot matches to the climax's of T1 and T2.
K this went on long enough but I feel that the movie was decent and probably the best thing McG will ever make, but it was far from perfect, and didnt seem like it's own film.
no idea
Jason Pitt
– Canada
Excellent review. You pretty much nailed it. I'm in agreement on nearly everything. I sat in the theatre with a group of about 15, and as soon as the movie was over, and we all left the theatre, I was shocked to hear that I was the only one not impressed with the movie.
Now, I can understand why people could enjoy the film. The action sequences are good, not necessarily great, but good. About the only good thing I can say about McG is that he does have an eye for putting together a big action sequence. But, this is not your everyday action film... This is a "Terminator" movie, and as such it needs more than just action. Cameron's films provided us with some interesting commentary both on our nature as humans, and the inability for us to ultimately change the outcome of our destinies. They were films that had something to say. Even Terminator 3 managed to redeem itself through an epic conclusion.
Unfortunately though, Salvation is missing any sort of valid commentary, and until its final act never feels like a "Terminator" movie. That makes it a substantial failure.
Anyway, figured I'd chime in my two cents. I've got a review of it forthcoming through Critical-Film.com, but until I get around to posting that, those are my thoughts in a nutshell.