Review: Terminator Salvation

Sorry for being so absent lately. I’m backed up on writing reviews… life’s been nuts. I figured I’d start with the one we saw this weekend – Terminator Salvation…

Terminator Salvation is the story of a group of resistance fighters, led by John Connor [Bale] after Judgement Day – the day the machines nuked the planet in their quest to annihilate the human race, their struggles to stay alive and to foil a diabolical plot to create a new and improved Terminator prototype… 

To say I was looking forward to this one would be an understatement. Christian Bale and killer robots together = happy me. I’m a fan of the franchise [though T3 wasn't that great, but was still fun as a fan with all the winks and campy nods to the first two movies], and I LOVE the show Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which has supposedly just been cancelled [but I can't give up hope!]… don’t get me started on that… 

The Good: The visual effects and action sequences were amazing. It was great fun seeing the original Terminator ‘endo-skeleton’ robots in all their menacing, deadly glory looking as life-like as you can get. A far cry from the original stop-motion of the original. There were some really suspenseful sequences that did have me on the edge of my seat. And great performances by Christian Bale as John Connor, Sam Worthington as Markus Wright and Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. And a cameo appearance by an old favorite was fun, too. 

The Bad: The story was mediocre and convoluted, the editing was choppy… it felt like something was missing. We found out after that they cut 40 minutes out, so maybe the ‘director’s cut’ will be better. There were some characters in the story that were unnecessary and actually brought down the quality of the whole film. There were subplots that weren’t explored enough to matter, so in the end they were a waste of screen time. The PG rating took away from it to in that it could have been a lot more dark and scary than it turned out to be. 

The Ugly: There were no big twists. They gave almost everything away in the previews. And the ending was over done – they ended up wasting another opportunity for a sequel [if they even make enough money on it to justify another one...]. And – this is something I almost never talk about – but the music didn’t match the movie. Danny Elfman, who is known for composing the soundtracks for Tim Burton and various animated shows and features just wasn’t the right choice to do this score. Rather than keeping it minimal, industrial and creepy, it was big orchestra, distracting and just didn’t jive. The characters while in their separate storylines should have been given their own themes to at least try to pull the movie more together. They could have just taken any instrumental Nine Inch Nails songs and sprinkled them throughout the movie and it would have turned out way better… 

So.. for the robots and effects, Christian Bale and Sam Worthington I give Terminator Salvation…

3 out of 5

Add’l Info: Released: May 21, 2009 • Runtime: 130 minutes • Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and language • Photo credit: courtesy of Warner Bros, Inc., via allmoviephoto.com

Advertisement