Review: Terminator Salvation

As terribly cliché as it would be of me to make some sort of “I’ll be back” pun, it was hard for any of us to believe Schwarzenegger, both in character and out of character, that the Terminator franchise would in any way return after the shambles that was Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. For a while it looked like that was the case. The story hadn’t nearly been told but the trilogy brought with it a sense of completion. Fastforward to 2007. Whisperings about Hollywood were predicting a return of the Terminator films. What brave, visionary director was going to take up the challenge, who was going to succeed in folling James Cameron’s shoes where Jonathan Mostow had failed?

McG is the man in question. No first name, barely a name at all. No vowels? Wow, this guy MUST be good if he’s pretentious enough to direct under such a name. What’s he made again? Oh.

McG has only directed 2 films before Terminator Salvation. Charlies Angels and Charlies Angels: Full Throttle. It looked like Terminator was going to be run into the ground with NO hope of resurrection this time. It was, in many people’s eyes, an immediate death sentence. Then, something amazing happened. The story was announced, pictures began leaking, the cast began expanding and before you knew it we were whipped into a frenzy promising us the darkest, most gripping Terminator film ever.

And was it? Well... not really. But it’s still pretty damn good. Terminator Salvation takes us into the future the first 3 films warned us about. The future everyone’s favourite T-800 was sent back from all those years ago to kill Sarah Connor. For the first time, we see what’s happened to the earth post-Judgement Day. It’s a mess. In Layman’s terms, robots have taken over the world, now a wastland. John Connor (Christian Bale) is leading a worldwide network of humans as the resistance against the machines. I’ve never been Bale’s biggest fan. He delivers what we’ve all come to expect. Charisma-free gruff dialogue and a lot of shouting, although nothing that can quite match the leaked behind-the-scenes f-bomb filled rant at the DP on-set. I mean, seriously, who WASN’T secretly hoping for, at some point in the film, the camera to nudge away, Bale drop character and lay into that poor guy in what’s probably the biggest, greatest blooper in recent cinema history.

Bale aside, the other actors fare better. Sam Worthington does an outstanding job as Marcus Wright. He’s energetic, cheeky and above all a great character. I would have liked a further, deeper look into his world as it really was quite arresting. The rest of the ensemble makes up a pretty solid background, although the film isn’t too interested in that. McG is eager and willing to give everybody what he thinks they want. Mindblowing action set pieces! Each bigger and more expensive than the last! Fair play to him, the strategy fairs well for the most part. The action is well-paced, tense and really quite engaging. I really found myself enjoying the film before the slowdown of the final few scenes. The climactic fight is good enough, resurrecting a VERY familiar Austrian-looking T-800 to dish out some pain to Connor before a convoluted, rushed final scene that is, to put it bluntly, a disappointment in every way.

Terminator Salvation is many, many things. On the whole, though, if you’re looking for a big, big action film with a nifty storyline and certainly more thrills than Star Trek, go with it and enjoy the best film of the summer so far.

****
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