Review of Terminator Salvation (2009) by Privatejoker — 09 Apr 2014

So here we have yet another cynical attempt by Hollywood to make money on old property. T1 and T2 are classics. They raised my standards of what an acceptable action movie is. T2 wrapped up the story so well that T3 should have never existed, but it unfortunately does.

After so many years since the unnecessary T3, I was really surprised that this came into fruition. Surely I thought they would have a really solid justification for bringing this back. They didn't. I'm not even going to criticize the movie for being directed by a total hack, or the lack of involvement from Schwarzenegger -- I'm just going to dissect it for what it is, and it still sucks pretty bad on its own.

T1 and T2 had this pseudoscience that was fictional, but consistent: in other words it made up it's own rules per say and stuck to them. The fact that judgement day was prevented in T2 means that the post-apocalyptic setting of this movie is a flaw in itself.

It just doesn't make sense. The only way this could have some coherence is if it was stated it takes place in some type of hypothetical scenario or another dimension or something of that nature, but this movie is adamant that it is a direct sequel.

Due to this, comparisons to the original 2 (or even T3, which is a bad movie, but better than this) are bound to arise. And this is what dooms the movie among various other things. One of those things is the awful casting.

Every character (with the exception of Yelchin, who was just OK) seemed out of place, like they belong in a soap opera. My biggest rant in this context is Christian Bale. It's apparent that they needed to snag at least one hugely popular actor for marquee value, but oh god is his performance terrible.

His gravelly Batman voice/mannerisms do not translate well to this one. He just comes off like a complete douche bag: in every scene he has this exaggerated sternness, which is obviously meant to convey that this is a very intense and serious movie, but it has an adverse, almost comical effect, not to mention that this one's rated PG-13 anyways.

That might seem small, but the fact that they included a PG-13 installment in an R-rated franchise makes me (correctly) assume that the studio ultimately just aimed to make money with this movie, and nothing more.

Catching this notion seriously cheapens the "experience." Throughout the movie I was seriously irritated with the sloppy editing and bad dialogue. The whole thing just stank of this made for TV quality that's hard to explain, but also really cheapens the experience.

This movie just simply lacks any charm or personality: it's an overproduced mess and should never have been, but studio greed has cemented yet another bad Terminator movie in the series. If you're even slightly interested in this series, watch the first 2 and forget this and 3 even exists.

..