I went to see Terminator Salvation with reasonable (albeit guarded) expectations, but the film absolutely exceeded them. In my humble opinion, it’s the second best film (out of four) of the great Terminator franchise. Bearing in mind that I thought Terminator 2: Judgment Day was one of the best action movies and sequels of all time, that’s a pretty big compliment for the new film directed by McG and starring Christian Bale and Sam Worthington.
As per usual, I’ll keep plot details to an absolute minimum. All that needs to be said is that the story revolves around a grown-up John Connor (Christian Bale, or Edward Furlong from T2 and Nick Stahl from T3). If you’ve seen the previous 3 films or have a vague idea what they are about, then no further explanation is necessary.
However, you don’t need to have seen any of the previous Terminator films to appreciate this one. It stands up well as an independent feature, and is significantly different in style to its predecessors. It’s substantially more dark, grim and gritty, capturing the pessimistic mood of the world perfectly. But when it comes to action sequences, of which Terminator Salvation has plenty, it doesn’t do too shabbily when judged under the high standards set by the franchise.
While I said the story revolves around John Connor, the movie really belongs to new character Markus Wright, played by Aussie Sam Worthington (who will be appearing in Avatar later this year and will play Perseus in the remake of Clash of the Titans). Worthington is arguably the lead character of the film, and shares just as much as screen time as (if not more than) Bale – and he has the more interesting story. This is the second time in a row Bale has been relegated to second fiddle despite being the supposed ‘lead character’ for a major film (the first, of course, is when Heath Ledger’s Joker upstaged his Batman in The Dark Knight). Maybe that’s the real reason Bale went American Psycho on the set!
While Bale and Worthington hog most of the minutes, Anton Yelchin absolutely steals the show as a young Kyle Reese. He is terrific in this role, and I have become a big fan. Also solid is Moon Bloodgood, a Resistance soldier, and Jadagrace Berry, too cute for her own good. Michael Ironside grunts his way through the film for his paycheck, but it is Bryce Dallas Howard that has the most thankless role as as Kate Connor. She really got short changed.
When people hear a guy named McG directed the film (you may remember him from such films as Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle), they cringe and refuse to give it a chance. Poor guy, but that’s the nickname he was given from birth because too many relatives had the same names (real name: Joseph McGinty Nichol). However, McG does a splendid job in Terminator Salvation, creating a realistic, believable world, keeping the action thrilling and dynamic (with creative camera angles and movements), while managing to add in some cool homages to the previous films. I thought they were cool anyway.
The special effects were superb, but audiences don’t expect anything less than seamless these days. Although there were some highly creative sequences, none of them were as iconic as those from T1 or T2.
I was surprised how relatively little fanfare accompanied the release of this movie, which was the first in the franchise without Governor Schwarzenegger in the lead. I’m not sure if it was because I was hidden from the world during my studies, but to me, Terminator Salvation had none of the hype that surrounded the release of other recent major films such as Star Trek or Angels & Demons. Of course, there was that infamous psychotic Christian Bale rant on set that made headlines all around the world, but I don’t believe it had anything to do with the unexpected low-keyness of it all. Then again, that didn’t stop the early reviewers of the film from spoiling the many wonderful surprises in this underrated blockbuster (if you haven’t seen it yet, dear reader, then I hope you had more success than me in avoiding them).
Okay, now the verdict. In my opinion, it’s better than a 4-star film, but not quite good enough to warrant 4.5 stars. Hence, I will have to settle for 4.25 stars out of 5!
