Terminator Salvation review
Ah, Terminator Salvation. I wrote yesterday about how there’s a lot less daylight between this movie and Star Trek than I think people give it credit for . . . but today I need to tackle T4 on its own terms. And no, this (obviously) wasn’t anything approaching the level of Cameron. Christ only knows what JC would have done with two hours and two hundred million to spend on the future war that we’d only seen in glimpses. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but there was a line in one of the trailers that I don’t think ever made it into the movie—Connor’s statement that “I don’t know if we can win this war.” That sense of desperation just wasn’t there. Cameron’s future rebels didn’t even dare to venture out in the day, it was so bad. You never saw the sun in his Machine War–one more thing that made those vignettes in T/T2 cool as hell, whereas Salvation doggedly went all Road Warrior on us.
Of course, Salvation also got caned by Everybody and Their Cat for being way too dark, so it would have taken a genius like Cameron to make it (literally) darker still and get away with it. The writers also clearly had problems deciding whether to focus on Bale or Worthington, and ultimately split the difference in a somewhat suboptimal way. Yet while Bale never really found his groove, Worthington was an instant star (as soon as we get past that first scene involving Helena Bonham Carter).
And the overall arc in Salvation—that this is all part of Skynet’s elaborate trap—was #$# cool. Of course, if you’re going to lure the leader of the resistance into your HQ, you might want to send a little more hardware into the room to get him than one quasi-obsolete Governor of California. And while Worthington was compelling, he wasn’t nearly magnetic enough for Moon Bloodgood to act like a total moron and just bail him out so he can go do his Terminator thing. But I’m sticking with my premise of yesterday–this was a Good/Decent Movie released at the Wrong Time that thus became the Worst Piece of Shit Ever. The mob will gnash its teeth and howl for blood. Like Skynet, they shall have it.
Looking for something to get your mind off Salvation? Go buy BURNING SKIES!
Tags: christian bale, sam worthington, terminator, terminator salvation
May 28th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I haven’t seen it yet, but two things of note.
Worthington is starring in Avatar - and JC recently said that Worthington was going to blow Bale of the screen.
Originally John Connor was an minor character in T4. Apparently Bale signed on with the condition that the part be expanded significantly. Such is the nature of Hollywood. I’m sure the writers knew who to focus on, but the producers had other plans…
May 28th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Thanks Erik, hadn’t heard the JC comment but can certainly see why he’s so confident.
On Terminator itself, some of what you’re referring to is covered here:
http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/19577/1/EXCLUSIVE-WHAT-WENT-WRONG-WITH-TERMINATOR-SALVATION/Page1.html
June 15th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
I just recently had the opportunity to see this flick and was surprised at how “Not Bad” it was.
Like most people, I fell prey to the misconceptions espoused by all the movie review nerds who just seem to love poo-pooing other people’s works (while still living in their mom’s basement). Most if not all of these “critics” also have never made a movie of their own - and yet think themselves “magically” qualified to make such a show of bemoaning how this #4 did not live up to 1, 2 or 3 or that McG is not on par with Cameron’s works.
I’m as hardcore a Cameron fan as the next guy but seriously enough already right? We know part 4 is a new movie by a different director - This isn’t George Lucas reaching back into the well to refill his wallet and continuing the “suck” train (Jar Jar Binks? Really?) - this is a concept reinterpreted by a different set of director & writers.
As I said - it was good and while admittedly no Magnum Opus for McG - he will likely improve as parts 5 and 6 comes into being and the story finds its way.
SPOILER ALERT
Christian Bale forcing rewrites (if true) did not help at all. (CB was supposed to be Marcus Wright and some no name guy was supposed to be JC, but CB wanted to be JC so they had to bump up the # of lines to fit the billboard star’s desires, also according to rumor the original plot was that JC was supposed to die and his face transplanted onto the Marcus Wright infiltrator cyborg prototype body).
August 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 am
Terminator Salvation is a very good movie. It is obvious that even without Schwarzenegger the movie can be good. The action scenes are top-notch.