Terminator Salvation

(2009)

Dir: McG

 

How could a series that started out with two of the greatest films ever made turn into the love child of Transformers and Mad Max?

It almost feels redundant recapping the plot, but because I’m such a nice chap, I’ll do it anyway.

It’s the future. It’s Man versus Machine. There we go; now that’s out of the way...

I’m not going to blame the film entirely on McG, although I simply do not trust a man with that name. It’s not like James Cameron would have done much better had he directed it. The machines would probably have been blue though. Sam Worthington would have popped up too. Why do people keep casting him? He has about as much charisma as a pencil. He makes Keanu Reeves look like Christopher Walken.

But all joking aside, Worthington, as Marcus Wright, the man with the mysterious past who wakes up amidst the metallic apocalypse, is a sleepwalking lead. The bonkers Christian Bale is wasted as John Connor. Every time Worthington is on screen in one of the many ridiculous scenes he shares with Moon Bloodgood, I am just counting the minutes until Bale can yell in our faces some more. At least one of the new, young additions is worthwhile, with Anton Yelchin doing a smashing job as the teenage Kyle Reese. Also, kudos for Michael Ironside being in a film ... with TWO arms!

Unfortunately, you can stop watching this film series after the dark masterpiece that was The Terminator and the thrilling juggernaut of T2. Watch T3 only for the smokin’ Kristanna Loken and Salvation, sadly, only for the barmy Bale.

I remember having nightmares about Arnold Schwarzenegger the first time I saw The Terminator. Well, I’ll be having them again after watching Terminator Salvation, but for an entirely different reason...

** / *****

 

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As has already been written, Terminator started off awesome. It presented a bleak vision of the future. The kind of vision that had persisted in the mind of Harlan Ellison was suddenly unleashed on an unwitting movie going public. The unique combination of time travel, robots and evil computers – all staples of pre-existing Science-Fiction – were brought together and thus they made a beautiful baby.

The story of the machine wars is what Terminator Salvation is all about. In my opinion perhaps the most gripping scene in the whole of The Terminator is specifically about that war and so I was quite looking forward to seeing a whole film based around it.

The flashback which plays through Kyle’s mind in The Terminator was how I hoped this film would turn out. Perhaps it’s just McG who can’t cut the mustard then.

Though putting it bluntly, I think the future war with the machines should always have remained alluded to. The bleakness of those scenes resides in the perpetuation of continuous death. Every time Kyle thinks back to his past and our future, there is a constant reminder of the omnipresent Skynet.

Its crusade to eradicate mankind is far more powerful when it remains a shadowy villain, devoid of voice and present only in its machinations. The extents of these are way more devious than any villain in film or literature. The damn thing decides the only way to resolve the issue of mankind is to devise time travel technology all for the purpose of then sending back a nigh on unstoppable assassin to kill the future leader of the mysterious resistance. That’s great storytelling.

The Skynet that exists in Terminator Salvation has none of this ruthless calculation. Its plan seems to consist of the following (spoiler).

Luring John Connor into its very heart; its most vulnerable position and then dispatching one very naked Arnold Schwarzenegger with no fucking gun to hurl him around like a rag doll. Instantly the memory of the incredible villainous computer from the previous films – not so much T3 – is gone like a puff of wind. The thing is just plain dumb. Perhaps it used up its entire RAM after it developed time travel technology.

 

“I’ll be back. Well, not really.”

 

The film falters on its focus on the war because this means it loses the time travel aspect and all we are left with is robots and evil computers, which has been done much better in films like The Matrix.

The future looked considerably more interesting in the first film and the sugary pop, Charlie’s Angels director can’t live up to that.

** ¾ / *****