5/28/29/09: Review of
Terminator Salvation (From Me):
From the moment it was announced, the revival of the Terminator franchise with the advent of Terminator Salvation was met with instant "Sacrilege!" or "Why?" from fans everywhere. I mean, Jonathan Mostow and co. pretty much tarnished its otherwise perfect reputation with Terminator 3: Rise of the machines, why rub more salt into the wounds of disappointed fans everywhere with another bad attempt at a "Judgement Day"-esque movie, right? Salvation was met with even more resistance when they announced the director behind movies like Charlies Angels & Charlies Angels: Full Throttle, McG (short for Joseph "McGinty" Nichol), would be its directior. Not even the presence of Christian Bale, who would be, technically (if you don't count the nameless actor, Michael Edwards, playing Post-JD!Connor, leader of the resistence) the fourth actor to take up the mantel of John Connor, seemed to dissuade the fears that Terminator Salvation was going to be a movie full of absolute Fail[ure].
Even I was filled with some doubt, if only because of the director (I hate the Charlies Angels movies) but was simply assured in the fact neither Christian Bale or Bryce Dallas Howard would give terrible performances in either roles as John & Kate connor, so that made it watchable enough for me. Kinda. But over the course of late 2008 to 2009, the multitude of trailers and later, TVSpots, dude, I was fully convinced that this movie could not suck in the least. Forget about those two movies McG directed, this was going to be the crowning achivement of his career and the actors employed could only make it better. Well, after a series of trial and error attempts to get out to the movies, I finally managed to drag my family out to a matinee theater to see this. I've gotta say, I was not disappointed.
[SP]Our tale begins with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a man on death row for the murder of two police officers and his brother. On the day of the execution, he is approached by Cyberdyne Scientist, Serena Kogen (Helena Bonham Carter), a woman dying of cancer, to give up his body for medical research. He is resistent at first, but in exchange for a kiss, he obliges and signs his body over to Cyberdyne Systems before being rowed off to be killed. Fast forword Fifteen years later, its now 2018, Judgement Day has occured and the humans (in form of "The Resistance") fight against the now self-aware Skynet and its Terminators, in order to survive and reclaim their world.
John Connor (Christian Bale), however, is not the prophetized leader his mother, Sarah, built him up to become. Instead he is a lowly grunt, taking orders from the talking-heads of the Human Resistence, all of which are unwilling to take any of the information or knowledge he has on the Terminators or Skynet itself, seriously. After a somewhat botched attempt to retrieve informaton from a Skynet facility, John learns that Syknet is after a "civilian" named Kyle Reese (his father) and struggles to find a way to reach out and find him. Meanwhile find Marcus Wright, alive and well, awakens confused by the state of world around him. By twist of fate, he is rescued from a T-600 by a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin of Star Trek fame) and a mute girl named Star (Jadagrace Berry) who were apart of a fallen resistence in Los Angles.
After hearing one of John Connor's messages the group decide to try and find him, however, on the way, Kyle and Star are captured by Harvesters. In the wake of a botched rescue attempt, Marcus encounters Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood), who promises to help him find his friends, if he comes to her base to meet John Connor, who will be more than willing to help him. The big problem with that idea? Marcus isn't exactly who he appears to be and once John Connor finds out, he finds himself faced with following orders or going against them in order to save the man that will become his father.[/SP]
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True to its word, we finally get to see what we've always been given a glimpse of in the previous Terminator films; the war against the Machines. However, I'm sure many will be disappointed to learn that they will not get the ocean of Terminators swarming across a vast field of skulls and rubble with laser guns, mowing down humans. Instead you get battles in ther forms of "skirmishes" or a simple scramble of humans running from their oppressors, fighting with everything at their disposal. McG, like Michael Bay (or Ridley & Tony Scott), has a eye for action sequences and excuted the lot of them with beautiful precision and smooth editing.
The first battle which introduces us to Bale's rendition of Connor, is a in your face and highly confusing melee of fire, crashing vehicles, and bullets. You are literally in the middle of the choas, being thrown about from the point of view of John Connor as he struggles to survive a monstrous explosion that kills his squad, a helicopter crash and attack from a crippled T-600. Afterward, the action sequences never fail to disappoint as they show a amazing utilization of the terminators and the human characters against them.
While by no means a horror movie in the least, the tension in certian scenes is so gripping I found myself... well, hugging myself in fear that I would loose it (yeah, I admit it, I'm a wimp). Your literally waiting for a Terminator to come around the corner whenever the characters find themselves in an otherwise unsafe place, searching for provisions. My particular favorite Terminator in this movie, is the Harvestor; The giant "Transformer-like machine" that captures humans for the testing of the T-700/800 Models, hearding them like cattle inside a transporter which it folds into. The Moto-Terminators come in at a close second.
That aside, this film impressed me on all the levels it really needed to. The vision of the future, while not the apocalypic city setting of the previous films, is bleak and baren. I wonder if McG took all the desert cues, where most of the film is set, from Mad Max/Mad Max 2, or even Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), as a lot of things from these films (particularly the ragged wardrobes of the human survivors and color saturated wide shots of the dusty world) came to mind when I was watching this. Now when concerned with the pace of the film, there were alot of things I felt could've been touched up on, but I gather this problem arises from the suspected massive amounts of "editing" it recieved to get the PG-13 Rating for a mass-viewing audience. Alot of scenes, particularly, the ones between the human characters, I felt had been removed/shortened to move the story along. The scene where Kate and John say good-bye to each other is a prime example. Even the dialouge felt a little sped up or out of sync, or maybe I'm just too accustomed to listening to the dialogue in the trailers and watching scenes that never made it into the movie.
On the subject of the characters, besides Marcus, Kyle (and by default Star), and Blair Williams to some extent, there really was nothing between them and you (the viewer) that allowed you to become terribly attatched to the characters. There was no exploration between the characters John and Kate Connor, which is what I would've loved to have seen, to give a glimpse into why they loved each other (or were even married), why in his right mind, John would knock up his wife in the middle of a war-torn world like the one they live in. It was by no means the actor's performances, they were just fine in my opinion (I'll get to that later), but I suppose the direction McG took with them really throws your sense of major concern off until the final gambit of the film. Only then do are you bitting your nails and praying [insert character name here] doesn't bite the dust. Alot of people will complain about the lack of major focus on John versus Marcus Wright, who is arguably the audience's POV for observing the desolate future of a post Judgement Day world, but it wasn't as big a problem as I feared it was. I was more or less worried about how they balance both John and Marcus' storylines, but the result is satisfactory for me. This is probably the one time I'm hoping there will be a Unrated/Director's Cut of Terminator Salvation once it becomes available to the public on Standard DVD & Blu-Ray.
When concerned with the performances, surprisingly, the strongest one is without a doubt Sam Worthington's. For a technical newcomer to US Shores (but a seasoned actor in his own right in the land of Australia), this guy really knocked it out of the park as Marcus Wright. Thank God for James Cameron's recommendation that's all I have to stay. The only negative thing I can really think of with his performance, and its not really a bother to me, was his accent; It was just all over the place. That aussie accent was so prominent in some scenes, I couldn't figure out if Marcus was supposed to be Australian or American. Anton Yelchin, on the other hand, gives a great performance as a young Kyle Reese. You could really pick up on the little personality quirks from Michael Biehn's performance, as the future 27-year old man sent back in 1984 in the original film, in Yelchin's performances, so kudos to this kid.
At the age of 14, Edward Furlong, in my opinion, has long since held the mantle as the best John Connor. Nobody has been able touch his performance, but Christian Bale easily makes him second in my book. Bale has never failed to give a good performance, whatever movie he happens to be in (good or bad), and while this is probably not his strongest performance (compared to his current-previous performances in Batman Begins, Rescue Dawn, The Prestige, or The Dark Knight), he brings an older John Connor to life as a hard and no-nonsense man, frustrated with his current position, with such a passion that I can't do anything except marvel at his work. While not really given much to do besides offer advise and look extremely pregnant in this film, Bryce Dallas Howard gives a better performance as Katherine "Kate" Connor than Claire Danes ever could in the awful T3: Rise of the Machines (I shall never forgive her for that extremely weak "Just die, you bitch!" line. Ugh, Failsauce. Danes has done extremely better in other films though). I hope Howard is given a little more do to in the sequel, should she appear again (I pray that she does).
Moon Bloodgood (of Journeyman fame), does extremely well as Blair Williams, though I thought her character was a little deminished when the director made it clear that she would become a potiential "love interest" of Marcus Wright, and wasn't too subtle about it. I wasn't opposed to it, but yeesh, McG, try sublty next time. Like Dallas-Howard, she isn't give much to do, but Bloodgood makes her time on screen worthy every penny. Ironically, Helena Bonham Carter as Serena Kogen, gives a very short-lived but impressive performance as a ailing woman looking for hope and a cold and calcuating machine, who effectively fools Worthington's character. At first, I was little disappointed with her final appearance, because I half-expected this pivotal scene of hers have her character return as nutty as Bellatrix Lestrange from the Harry Potter series. That fault as mine, however
(that's what I get for trying to pegion-hold the woman). Jadagrace Berry, really had do nothing except be incredibly cute in silence and I loved every minute of her. I kept expecting the cliched "Oh, she talked! Its a Miracle!" moment to happen though. Overall, I say, more Jadagrace Berry!
Danny Elfman (which is amusing, given Helena-BC is in this movie) who composes for the movie, creates an effective action score that adds onto the tension of the action sequences. His Salvation theme is reminicient enough of the original theme to please this Terminator fan, though, ironically said theme also shows up in various moments of the film (especially when a certain T-800 model we all know and love appears). The nods to the previous movies were, for once, not bludgened over the heads of its viewers, and handled, in my opinion, with great care. I think my favorite homage, is without a doubt, the Judgement Day reference to a rebellious John Connor's youth with Gun'n'Roses' "You Could be Mine" roaring over the speakers of a dusty radio to attract the attention of a Moto-Terminator. There even a nice reference to the hey-day of Grunge Rock with some Alice in Chains' "Rooster" thrown into the mix. Ah, good times.
Finally, on the subject of the Special Effects, both Practical and Computer Generated alike, they were amazingly executed. While there were moments where the CGI peeked out and let you know it was just that, all the other times it was barely noticable. It creates and aids to the Apocalyptic setting of the film. The combined physical traits of body builder Roland Kickinger and the de-aged facade of the Governer of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, do a great job re-creating the menancing appearance for the T-800 model. However, the only thing I didn't like with that little gimmick is that they were damn quick to hide and get rid of Schwarzenegger's face in some scenes. The practical effects for the Terminators, handled by Legacy Studios (formerly known as Stan Winston Studios) were awesome. The leaps and bounds in animatronic technology displayed with the use of the T-600's and the Prototype T-800 are mindblowing. I hope there's a Oscar Nomination in their future after this.
Overall, despite its flaws, Terminator Salvation is a thousand times [infinity] better than Terminator: Rise of the Machines and a great inclusion to the previous two Terminator films. However, do not go into this movie thinking it will be the next Terminator: Jugement Day, because its not and never will be. I'm honestly surprised by the lukewarm responses this film has gotten, because its better than most people are giving it credit for. Overall, a solid
[4 out of 5]. The Terminator has purpose and life again in the 21st century.
It was well made...tho' a little hard to follow if you didn't know the background.... but still .. I am glad I watched it 
I understand his role is supposed to be this hard, stressed soldier but his grim expression most of the time was just so tiring to watch.
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