Terminator Salvation Review (C-)

The future that Terminator Salvation shows us is disappointing. It looks not nearly as horrific as the first movie was able to make it look (at a fraction of the budget of this movie). And John Connor? Not only is he not the leader of the resistance but he’s not even the lead in this movie. He’s very much a side character. We see him doing stuff but the story isn’t even about him. Bryce Dallas Howard is plainly wasted in this movie. Unless you recently watched the third movie, you may not even have a clue who she’s supposed to be.

Instead Terminator Salvation focuses on a teenage Kyle Reese- a fact that is forced on the audience by the movie airing the tape that Sarah records at the very end of the movie- except that it isn’t the same recording. Instead it’s re-recorded with a line that’s not in the original, emphasizing that Kyle is a teenager. I might also add that these re-recorded tapes have not even one tenth of the emotion that James Cameron was able to create. So how do they explain the altered tapes? Well, actually, they don’t, which again stinks of lazy writing. The movie follows Reese as he is suddenly pursued by Terminators. Why? Because he’s the number one most wanted. But how could that be? There’s absolutely no record of Kyle Reese being related to John Connor. More lazy writing.

The other major character focus is named Marcus played by Sam Worthington, a man who finds out he’s really a machine. I know, I didn’t put a spoiler warning in, but, you see, you don’t need one. That fact is mentioned in the very first scene of the movie. Marcus’ story pretty much is along the lines of a man who thinks he’s still a man, only to find out he’s a machine and is saved (with very little explanation) by a woman who has most likely spent her life fighting the machines. I won’t reveal any other ”spoilers” except to see that if you are even half awake during the movie, you’ll have guessed most of the plot before it even happens.

So what can I say that was good? Very little actually. It wasn’t a terrible movie exactly, it just didn’t really engage me. Sure there were some interesting Terminators, but too many plot holes. Why would John waste his ammo shooting a Terminator when he knows that his little hand gun won’t do any good? And why does a Terminator-bike have a set up so that a human can ride it?

Overall this movie leaves me with a feeling of “what’s the point?”? Like a lot of useless reboots and sequels lately (I’m talking to you, Star Trek!) I didn’t feel like there was any point to this movie. I didn’t need to see a young Kyle Reese, and frankly, Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese gave us enough tantalizing descriptions that I didn’t need to see the Future War either. Whilst James Cameron’s first two movies gave us exciting movies with groundbreaking special effects it also gave us thoughts about the future, about nuclear war, and about love. This movie had none of those things going for it. This one was just milking the cash cow.

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