Terminator: Salvation

Terminator: Salvation, the fourth Terminator movie, reminds me of another summer blockbuster featuring large robots. They’re both very big, very loud, and extraordinarily dumb. The film is set in the future, after the world has been taken over by the machines of Skynet. John Connor is a soldier in the human resistance. Contrary to what a fan of the Terminator series would think, John Connor is not the lead character in the movie, instead, most of the movie focuses on Marcus Wright, a man who wakes up in this strange future after being executed many years before.

I am a huge fan of the Terminator franchise, having seen the first three movies multiple times. I even watched the good, but just not Terminator good, tv show, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I’m even one of the few fans that really loved the third movie, Rise of the Machines. Salvation if the first time that the franchise has really disappointed me. The fault mostly lies with the choice of McG as a director and a very weak script. The casting was excellent; I thought Christian Bale would have made an incredible John Connor, especially after seeing his Batman. Anton Yelchin is a very good actor, who I wish I could see more of. His portrayal of Pavel Chekov in this year’s Star Trek was perfect. Sam Worthington was the best actor in the movie however. I had never heard of the actor before seeing this movie, but what I did see of him here was worth making mention of. Moon Blodgood and Bryce Dallas Howard are both capable actresses, but were both underused in the movie, I barely even noticed they were there.

The actors, however hard they worked, could never have overcome the half-hearted script and directing that this movie received. While this movie was being made, I had two reactions to the news I received about it. The first was joy that Christian Bale had been chosen to play the role of John Connor, the other was disappointment that McG had been chosen as its director. McG was just too lightweight a director to handle something as respected or as serious as a franchise like Terminator. Through the entire movie, I kept thinking to myself, “What’s the point?” There are all these characters running around, doing what seems to be very important things, yet all of it comes across as rather pointless. The terminators themselves seem harmless in this movie. At one point, John Connor sneaks into the terminator headquarters and hides behind a corner as a “deadly” terminator walks past, pauses, looks around, and moves on. Is this the new terminators? Comic jerk-off guards of a useless base? Where’s the sense of dread that the sight of a terminator used to put in our hearts? Where’s the fear gone? It’s gone along with the respect the franchise used to receive. The only sense I got that the terminators were any kind of threat was when Arnold Schwarzenegger shows up, but that was quickly replaced by disgust again when he left and was replaced by a useless machine that appeared about as dangerous as a roomba. Hide the kids, the world has been taken over by roombas.

-J