That is to say, Holy Cybernetic Organisms, Batman…but it just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, does it?
Directed by Joseph "McG" McGinty Nichol (We are Marshall, Charlie's Angels and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle), this fourth installment in the Terminator series stars Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, 3:10 to Yuma) as John Connor, prophet and saviour of the human resistance, Sam Worthington (Macbeth, Rogue) as cyborg prototype Marcus Wright, and Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Charlie Bartlett) as Kyle Reese, the young man who eventually goes on to father John Connor (remember the first movie?), with a brief CGI heavy appearance by The Governator.

We jump to 2018, where a brief recap of the Judgment Day brings us up to date on the war between humans and the machines. John Connor is leading a group of resistance soldiers on what appears to be a fact finding mission, when he discovers a corral of people being held captive by Cyberdyne for future research and development. He also discovers plans for the new T-800 Terminator, proving his “prophecy”, which is really the information gleaned from the first two movies.
An attack on the group leaves Connor the sole survivor, or so he thinks. Once he is rescued, Marcus Wright crawls naked from the wreckage, steals some clothes from a dead resistance soldier, and makes his way across the dessert. From that point on the movie is a fast-paced jump from attack to explosion as the few humans left try to avoid and/or destroy the threat of the machines.
Through the first half of the film the plot relied heavily on coincidence, i.e. the first person Wright comes across happens to be the same person that John Connor is searching for, Wright just happens to be an electrical/mechanical whiz and gets a radio going just as Connor is broadcasting a message to the resistance, and so on, but I was pretty distracted by the explosions and robots to dwell on it for long, and it was only in thinking back on the movie to write this review that it even occurred to me, and it all makes sense later.
I found this movie to be a vast improvement over Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Until I saw that movie I didn’t think it would be possible to make a movie about cyborgs boring. The plot dragged, and at no point did I really feel any kind of sympathy to Connor (played by Nick Stahl), who came across as a head case. Terminator Salvation essentially ignores T3, with very little explanation offered for the years between, other than the quick recap, which I think works in its favour.
As someone who never really followed the Terminator series (they were my mom’s favourite movies. Do you feel old now, Arnie?) I might have preferred a bit more back-story, but you aren’t lost without it. There are a few references to the past movies, i.e. Connor accusing a cyborg of trying to kill him and his family when they went back in time (this film doesn’t use any time travel), and a few quotes from the movies, “if you’re going to point a gun at someone, you’d better be ready to pull the trigger,” “come with me if you want to live,” and my personal favourite, “I’ll be back.” These moments were probably more clarified to those that were fans of the series, but the humour of the quotes wasn’t lost on me, thanks to teenaged boys (and husbands) who quote movie lines to death.
I was leery of the casting when I first heard Bale was going to be John Connors, not because I had any deep feelings on who should play him but because he’s Batman. He has so completely absorbed that role in my mind that I didn’t know if I’d be able to separate Bale from Batman, but he becomes John Connor as easily as if he’d always been him. He has just the right amount of badass blended with humanity to make him the natural voice of the resistance.
Bale is just one example of great casting in this movie. Worthington is able to play on our sympathies despite the fact that our first view of him is as a murderer, and he just looks pretty in a trench coat. Yelchin has enough caution to take care of himself and his young friend Star, while being brave (or crazy?) enough to align himself with the resistance, even if his section is only two people strong.
The only character that bothered me is Connor’s wife, Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard) who, despite being trained as a veterinarian and apparently physician, comes across a little bit like a stereotypical 1950’s housewife, pregnant and stoking the home fires waiting for her man to come home. Which isn’t to say that I think a woman as pregnant as she is should be out hunting cyborgs, but her only purpose in the movie seems to be to add humanity to John, a reminder for why he shouldn’t just give up. The other women in the movie (Star, Blair, the old woman…who is never really explained) make up in strength and ingenuity what Kate lacks.
On the whole, I found Terminator Salvation to be a fun and exciting movie, not just a stupid action flick where you need to leave your brain at the door (though there were a few moments where my date was probably ready to leave me at the theatre, after “why is he doing that, wouldn’t x make more sense, would I be less confused if I’d seen the other movies more recently?”), and I look forward to the coming sequels. I might even go back and watch the first two. But not the third.
4 out of 5
Laura Gies
Great review Laura...almost makes me wanna see it, which is saying something! Welcome to SiM!! Cheers
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