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Terminator: Salvation

May 25th, 2009 - 5:48pm // Reviews, Reviews - Flicks

 

It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion by now that summer blockbusters are as much an American tradition as apple pie, Coca-Cola, and Chuck Norris (circa Delta Force, of course). When the weather warms up, we are more than willing to shell out a couple of ten-dollar bills to see movies starring actors who get paid more per second of screen time than the average blue-collar Joe will likely ever earn in their entire lives. But this isn’t a review of class inequality in post-modern America. No, my friends, this review involves robots.

Terminator: Salvation is yet another stark reimagining of a beloved franchise in a long line of others being released this summer season (Star Trek, I’m looking at you). But, wait – how can the rather morbid Terminator franchise grow starker and… more reimagined than it already is? How can a series built around the premise of homicidal, time-travelling, humanoid robots possibly be brought back to the big screen for a fourth time without jumping the shark a la Terminator 3? Well, Hollywood pondered this for a hot minute, stroked their forked goatees, and *BAM* they cast Christian Bale. Worked for Batman. Done.

So, as always, the question remains… Does director McG, the creative mastermind behind such gems as Charlie’s Angels and The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll manage to deliver on the massive reams of hype? Or should his contract be TERMINATED? Click to find out.

If you’re a fan of the Terminator universe, the odds are good that you’ve probably already watched the verbosely-named (and possibly now defunct) Sarah Connor Chronicles on Fox. After finishing the second season, the writers had drafted some very clever story-lines involving on-the-lam teen, John Connor, and his misfit band of freedom fighters duking it out with robots from the future and a then-burgeoning SkyNet. These writers had obviously studied the canon (or literary ground-rules) established in the first trio of movies and continued to develop material that fit perfectly within the mesh of the underlying story. Having said all of this, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering if Salvation builds upon the rich layer of groundwork from the Fox show. Well, the short answer is no and the longer answer is fuck no.

Salvation takes place about ten years after Judgment Day – when the rogue AI, SkyNet, launched the world’s supply of nukes in an attempt to exterminate humanity. John Connor (Christian Bale) is now an angry, angry footsoldier in the human resistance, bent on taking the fight back to the machines. Confusingly, the opening text explains that only some of the resistance fighters believe Connor is their saviour, while others… don’t. This is strange because John really hasn’t done anything to earn this moniker yet, except for the fact that his psycho-ward-breakout mother, Sarah, believes he will someday lead the resistance. Therefore, it’s a bit of a stretch that John has managed to convince so many people that he will one day crush the machines when he really hasn’t done shit, as of yet, to prove it. Regardless, John is only one half of Salvation. A man on death row in our time, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), finds himself in a bit of a quandary when he gets the needle and awakens in a SkyNet research facility with no memory of what has happened in the past decade since he died. Add in an imperiled teenaged Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, better known as Chekhov from this year’s Star Trek), who just happens to be John’s future father, and you’ve got a colour-by-numbers Terminator script. From start to finish, Salvation feels like a half-finished product. What started off as a genuinely interesting idea, feels like a Hollywood hand-me-down after a solid story was eschewed for pretty-much mindless gunplay and explosions. Granted, Terminator movies are all about action, but it needs to be couched in an interesting story or else, in my opinion, it’s pretty much pointless.

 And while this aspect of Salvation is disappointing, there are other components that somewhat make up for the lack of story. For one thing, the CG is absolutely spot-on. Lots of thought was put into the creation of entirely new machine constructs, such as the four-story Harvester - that harries Marcus & company in one portion of the movie and sends attack bikes after them when they try to escape. It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish computer-generated images from real actors in the same scene, and Salvation definitely pushes the envelope in this regard. Furthermore, I still have nothing but massive respect for Christian Bale as an actor. He delivers a pretty powerful performance, regardless of how cliched his lines can sometimes be. Michael Ironside is a perfect pick for the stalwart leader of the resistance and, previously unknown to me, Sam Worthington was fantastic as the conflicted Marcus Wright. On the flip side, I’m not a huge fan of rappers in movies (a la Will I Am in X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and the inclusion of Common as a freedom fighter merely cemented this notion further in my mind.

Also, there are a number of plot holes and inconsistencies in this movie that baffled and pissed me off to one degree or another. For one thing, the characters in the first three Terminator movies spent the entire running time of their respective movies trying to take down ONE Terminator each. Compare this to Salvation, where apparently a mute 8-year-old can single-handedly take down a minigun-toting T-600. Furthermore, why the hell do Terminators insist on throwing humans as far as they can to kill them? They could snap their neck with one twist of their servos, and yet they insist on heaving people around. Ridiculous. Also, in the future, open-heart surgery can apparently be performed in desert field hospitals. No lie.

Enough geek rage. When it comes down to it, Terminator: Salvation was a good idea gone awry. It had tons of potential and, with a decent story, it could have been something special. Instead, it descends into mediocrity and will go down in the annals as just another sequel that failed to live up to its predecessors.