Review: ‘Terminator Salvation’

The fourth film in the ‘Terminator’ franchise, it’s savior it is not. Directed by the yet to prove himself McG (Charlie’s Angels 1 & 2) with a budget that would make any relatively green filmmaker swoon at the opportunity, has managed to make a technically high-end piece of action with a particularly low-end story. ‘Terminator Salvation’ makes an effort to bring all the pieces of the time-bending story together and tie up loose ends but fails.

As the title suggests, the character of John Connor (Christian Bale) is seen by most humans as the prophecised “savior” of mankind. Connor, in this chapter, is attempting to locate and rescue his father Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) in order to preserve his own fate and that of human-kind. If his father dies, who is currently a teenager, then the first ‘Terminator’ movie would never happen and John Connor would have never been born.

Sam Worthington (Rogue) plays Marcus Wright, a man about to be executed on Death Row for crimes he fully admits to and demands punishment for. Wright is a man with a conscience about the wrongs he has committed and sees no redemption for himself. As the poisons of lethal injection stream into his body and his life slips away from him, we are thrown into the future year 2018 amidst the chaotic and horrifying aftermath of a human apocalypse brought on by machines.

Marcus Wright ends up being the focal point of this story. After a mission led by Connor goes terribly bad, leaving only Connor alive, Wright emerges from the smoldering wreckage unharmed and completely confused about where he is and what has happened. I’ll refrain from directly giving away any spoilers, but to be honest… even if you haven’t already figured out the truth about Marcus Wright going into the movie you’ll have it 95% figured out within the first quarter of the film. McG’s attempt to maintain the mystery of Wright’s existence and importance to the story is ruined early on and the remaining 5% is highly predictable.

‘Terminator Salvation’ gets itself a bit confused as Wright could easily be mistaken for the “savior” figure in this story over John Connor, if not for the already establishedback-story from the trilogy. Much of the plot elements in this movie are sort of casually borrowed from previous films and the final battle scene feels similar in some ways to that of ‘Terminator 2’. If not for the action in this movie, I fear I may have found myself bored due to a relative lack of originality.

With the failures aside, the one thing that ‘Terminator Salvation’ does have going for it are the special effects. Marcus Wright… (fine, technically this is a mini-spoiler) …is handled with a certain minimally intrusive but highly effective approach that works well. We get to see a handful of different terminator models pop up throughout the movie, but the best parts are the extensive Hunter/Killer Terminator scenes and the Terminator-Motorcycles, which are featured in one heck of an awesome chase scene. Personally, I found the Hydrobots to be part cheesy and part Matrix-esque, but I suppose they do fit the bill as used in the story.

As for the acting, everyone did a decent job, but no one really stood out, including Christian Bale. I can’t help but wonder how the actor/director relationship between Bale and McG went… we know how the actor/DP (director of photography) relationship went, don’t we? Helena Bonham Carter’s rather short role in the movie felt somewhat out of place simply by the fact that Carter stood out as an actress from the rest of the cast. The Tim Burton regular seemed to stick out like a sore thumb. Yelchin was surprisingly convincing as the young Kyle Reese and Sam Worthington performed on a level equal to Bale’s.

In the end, the story isn’t over. What? I’m not giving anything away! As much as this franchise jumps around in time and changes itself up with each movie, who the Hell knows where the story is supposed to actually end? Did you really think they would apply an ending making it impossible to continue the franchise? Not only is this another way in which the film fails to tie up loose ends, but it ventures to give birth to the question of when is enough… enough? Ultimately, what I took away was that the franchise is dead and needs to end and ‘Terminator Salvation’ was questionably even necessary. In my mind, the franchise is as stands…

#1 ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day’
#2 ‘The Terminator’
#3 ‘Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines’
and, bringing up the rear… #4 ‘Terminator Salvation’

[Overall: 3 stars out of 5]