Review of Terminator Salvation (2009) by Lewis W — 06 Jan 2015

A wasted opportunity.

I never wanted another Terminator movie after the disappointing 'Rise of the Machines'. It would have needed great directorial and writing skills to make the story of a protector and terminator sent back in time entertaining to watch again. But unlike anything like that the premise of this one is interesting, set in 2018 after events of Judgement Day with an ongoing Man vs Machine war. When I saw name of Christian Bale in the cast I got excited. The movies opening credits are similar to the original 'The Terminator' with an upgraded version of the original theme with solid sound effects, wow more excitement. But alas! All this excitement gets washed down so badly between the opening and closing credits.

Okay firstly film is barely focused, I didn't not understand what was the ultimate goal it was trying to achieve. Sam Worthington's character Marcus was very enigmatic and just doesn't fit into the Terminator universe already established by the first 3 films. With almost whole story centered around the great leader 'John Connor' speculated in the franchise is barely given such greatness. Christian Bale was tries his best with John Connor, the character the script fails to put in spotlight. Even though this John was more leader-like than Nick Stahl's in T3 still his actions had lack of motivation. It was all pale and boring. The post apocalyptic environment created is nice but it falls short on the fearful touch. I know the T-800s were not created yet but come'on there was a lack of terrifying bad-ass terminator. The HKs weren't quite dreadful and I don't know from where suddenly a that huge Transformer like robot came out of nowhere. The moto-terminators were cool though. Also the first half where Marcus meets up with Kyle Reese felt like just existed to induce some action and so that later Marcus can tell Connor later that he had met Kyle Reese. At least Terminator 3 had some cheesy humor and thrilling chases but there were no laughs here. Yes, its post-apocalyptic setting that doesn't mean the humans don't loosen up a bit. The legendary 'I'll Back' statement gets another go and my god it felt so forced. Arnold not being cast is acceptable considering the premise of the film, but the usage CGI Arnold instead of what could have been a nice special appearance was simply pathetic and cringe-worthy.

Okay, the movie gets many things wrong still it was a honest attempt with the post-apocalyptic setting and plot instead of recycling the same time-traveling terminator chase plot. The sound effects were really great if not original. Also same goes to CGI. Technically it is much better than T3. The duo of Kyle Reese and Star was really lovable but unfortunately gets very less screen- time. The movie has lot explosions and boom blast action. Despite all that the story is not very bad as the recent Transformer movies, if they had involved Kyle Resse a bit more it would have been very nice.Terminator Salvation can be considered as a flawed spin-off try.

RATING: [2/5].