Terminator Salvation: All action, no story.

I went to see "Terminator Salvation" during it's opening week on a Thursday night. It might not be the worst film of this year, but it's pretty terrible. This franchise just keeps falling apart since Cameron left the seat. After a long wait, we finally get to see the battle for mankind and it ends up feeling limp. I've been a fan of this franchise since I was about 5 or 6 years old. My parents first introduced me to the original film when I was a kid and I went nuts over it. So you could imagine how much joy I felt when I saw "T2", which is one of the greatest achievements within both the sci-fi and action genre. "T3" was not a good but at least it attempted to be as fun as the first two. But "Terminator Salvation" has basically ruined all of my hopes and dreams for this franchise. It's gone and it should not continue. If this franchise is going to get this bad then it doesn't need to continue.

Here's a quick synopsis.

After Skynet has destroyed much of humanity, John Connor leads the resistance to keep the machines from finishing the job. It's set in the year 2018 and the future is altered by the appearance of Marcus Wright. Connor must figure out where he came from. And while Skynet prepares it's destruction of humanity, Connor and Wright will embark on a journey that will lead them to the depth of Skynet and discover a terrible secret that could annihilate everyone.


This film is visually appealing, and the action sequences are very well done. The problem is that there is no real dramatic weight behind them since the film gives us no reason to care about the characters. Story and characters should come first, but McG felt that explosions, special effects, and overblown chase sequences should come first. There was simply not enough story to keep me interested, no real character development, and no compassion in either love story. The dialogue was laughably bad and the performances are consistently mediocre.

Christian Bale gives his most flat performance to date. I don't know if it was how John Connor was written, but Bale's performance is one-dimensional and his accent is horrid. All he does is scream, look intense, scream some more, look more intense. This is John Connor were talking about, the messiah of this franchise. He shouldn't be such a predictable and boring character.

Bryce Dallas Howard had nothing to do except look shocked in every scene. Sam Worthington looks bored throughout the entire process. And Moon Bloodgood is nothing more then eye candy. Anton Yelchin is the only one who walks away with dignity, but even he couldn't bring any life to this film. Which is another problem with the film, there doesn't seem to be any life in it.

The first two installments were fun, full of life, excitement, character depth, and real human warmth for us to connect too. None of that is apparent in "Terminator Salvation." It's too serious for it's own good. It doesn't try to spark a lot of excitement or even entertain us. It's not provocative or moving, because it gives us nothing to care about.

McG seemed to care more about connecting this film to the first two installments. It couldn't stand on it's own because it kept reminding me of those two milestones in cinema. Forget that the CGI Arnold was utterly pathetic. Some of the characters were very pointless as well. Like Kyle Reese's cute little sidekick who does nothing out of the ordinary. She has no personality like Newt in "Aliens", nor does she attempt to kill any robots. She's there for no reason at all. Another awful thing in this mess is Common's performance as Barnes. He's so bad, it almost made me cringe.

This film even has such a cheesy and juvenile message that I can't even connect it to the first three films. The message in "Terminator" is that we can't avoid our fate so we have to face it. The message in "Terminator 2" is there is no fate or destiny, it's our choices that shape our path in life. "T3" back peddled and said we can't avoid our destiny at all, and we'll have to face it sooner or later. We're just preventing the inevitable until the time comes. The message in "Terminator Salvation" is everybody gets a second chance. That is beyond cheesy.

Overall, this is one of the worst summer films in recent years. It has some nice action sequences, a dark tone, and cool visuals. But that's all the praise it deserves. This film is too predictable, too serious, and McG takes no chances with the story. The ball for this franchise is finally dropped. My rating is a 3/10.