Terminator Salvation

What can I say about Terminator Salvation? It's a decent addition to the Terminator series, but has major issues. Some would say that it is the worst of the series, but I disagree. T3 will always hold that top honor for me.

It was nice to see the return of Kyle Reeese. It was a different look at a character that was forgotten to quickly. John Connor was a bit stale and I wanted way from his character.

It was nice to see this future everyone spoke about in past films, Problem was this film felt darker than all the others, excluding T1. The first film was pretty dark but had a storyline And an R Rating to back that up. This film just didn't feel like it belonged to the Terminator world. And a few nostalgic lines and visuals did nothing to make it feel like it was part of the franchise.

All of that being said, the film still had some decent action scenes and some interesting moments. It's not bad, but its not fantastic either.

I know that even amongst the rocky track record of the Terminatorfranchise, Terminator Salvation is not especially well-liked. I've always been a little bit of an outlier when it came to this series though; like everyone else, I know the first two are the only great ones, but to me, it's actually not T2 that stands at the top of the pile, but The Terminator, the first film. And since that first film, we've copped 5 new runs at a Terminator movie. Out of all 5 of them, Salvation is the only one that tried something different from the first one. Even the lofty success of T2 was garnered using the same core concept as the original movie. Salvation hits something new, and while that obviously doesn't work for a lot of its audience, for me, it's the best movie outside of the first two that the franchise has made to date.

Final rating:★★★ - I liked it. Would personally recommend you give it a go.

Wall-to-wall post-apocalyptic action needed more time to breathe

The first couple of Terminator films are easily two of the greatest sci-fi/action flicks in history. The problem with the third one, more than anything else, was that it was largely just more of the same; and you can only recycle the same plot so many times before it gets stale. This explains the filmmakers’ decision to set this fourth installment (2009) in the post-apocalyptic future where the machine-controlled Skynet is at war with the surviving humans, otherwise known as The Resistance.

A few characters from the previous films are featured: An older John Conner (Christian Bale), his dad Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), who's actually just a teenager here (such are the complexities of time travel) and the T-800 Schwarzenegger Terminator (CGI face, of course). Beyond these we get some new characters, the best being Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), followed by Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood). Also on hand are: Conner's mate, Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard), a mute girl named Star and Helena Bonham Carter in a peripheral role.

On the surface everything is of the highest filmmaking caliber. The problem is that there's not enough character development or intriguing respites. So what we end up with is a plot that strings together a bunch of cool post-apocalyptic action sequences with people who are constantly grim, shouting and killing, but we barely know them and therefore hardly care. It's like putting on an extreme metal cd that's full of hyper drumming, buzzsaw riffing & screeching/grunting vocals from beginning to end. There are no valleys to contrast the over-the-top highs and so it cops a samey-sounding, dull vibe. In other words, the very energy and excitement meant to impress & move the consumer backfires due to overkill. That's why they call it "overKILL." It's a curious thing but all too true.

Be that as it may, there are enough positive elements in “Terminator Salvation” to make it worth checking out if you’ve seen the first two films. For instance, Marcus Wright is an intriguing protagonist who thinks there's no good in him until he is informed otherwise. At around the 45-minute mark there's a good campfire scene in the desert between two characters sharing a warm moment in a world gone mad. The film would have been more effective if it contained more scenes like this. But the

So... this was awful. It was just kind of pointless, but at least (unlike the new ones that seem to want to destroy the Terminator franchise) it fit into the series. So, you know, it COULD have been worse. At least Salvation seems like a continuation of the Terminator movies.

That's about the best thing that could be said about it.

Bale really stinks it up, but then again, it's an MCG film and he really doesn't know how to handle things. He splices it together, scene by scene, with no uniformity or any real transitions to lead the viewer through the story, and does so with a convoluted plot that does, kind of, make a little bit of sense... kind of.

The John Connor scenes are terrible, the everything scenes are really terrible, and you only have one or two moments that actually feel like they are coming from a Terminator movie and not a second rate clone.

Undoubtedly better than any Terminator movie that came afterwards.

This movie may not be perfect and not as good as the first two Terminator films,, but it is a fun watch (maybe as a guilty pleasure).

The acting ist good. Christian Bale as John Connor is as best as it gets. Sam Worthington does, as always, a decent Job as the lead character.

I liked the production desing. One could wish that it should have gone in that or this direction, but overall they did a good job.

The cameo of Arnie as a CGI-character and a fresh T800 was enjoable and fun.

People gave it a lot of flaming back in the days - but, hey - it's at least as good as the 3rd movie and it's definitely better than anything that came afterwards, at least regarding story and characters.

74/100

A prisoner, to be executed, agrees to give his body to science. He wakes up in the middle of the war with the machines not knowing quite what was done to him. I really liked this stand-alone film taking place in the future war. It has its plot problems and the ending is kind of sappy but there's some good solid, realistic sci fi action, that's not nearly as over-the-top as "Terminator: Rise of the Machines", and a good, albeit simple and familiar story. Great pacing, lots of crashes and explosions, a cameo by Arnie, and an interesting addition to the story. Great escapist entertainment. -- DrNostromo.com