Review of Terminator Salvation (2009) by Phil H — 05 Dec 2012

Mixed bag 'T4' is, to be honest it started crap, simple, I was bored, confused and completely uninterested at what was going on. Bale's frogman bit from a chopper into a furious sea to swim to the sub headquarters was pretty stupid, the 'Moto-terminators' were crap as I suspected (surely terminators of that speed and high tech could kill people very easily?).

Anton Yelchin grew on me during the film but I still think he was a tad too weak willed and skinny for Michael Biehn's 'Reese'. The huge robot sequence was just 'Transformers' and didn't fit the Terminator franchise if you ask me.

But after we got past that stuff it did get better and the action at the end between 'Connor', 'Marcus' and the 'T-800' was great stuff. The first 30min of the film was almost plotless, just random it seemed, but about halfway through things were pulling together and it did start to feel like a good flick. Its much better than 'T3' for sure and actually I did prefer it over 'T2' towards the end, despite the low cert it did come across well and not light hearted a tall. Although a bit more blood and harsh language would have picked up the pace somewhat or added a more tense adult feel.

Some of it still didn't quite feel right though, the Arnie 'cameo' was a really nice touch and was so cool but the face was a little 'off', not quite perfect but close. The mannerisms of Arnie's facial movements were imitated well but I wanted to see a bit more Arnie. The classic Terminator tune needed to be used more in tense parts too, you really need that track playing more in a Terminator film. The last thing was 'Skynet' being a bit of an anti climax, not really the terminator fortress I expected with legions of 'T-600's' and tanks etc...it seemed a bit plain and devoid of much activity.

Its growing on me as I think about it now hours after seeing it, not as good as it should have been. Again the certification and being light on the originals grim darkness factor has a lot to do with that for me but its certainly not too bad, better than I thought it would be.