Film Review

~ Terminator Salvation ~

After a 25 year wait fans finally get to see the future war between man and the machines foreseen in both Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

As leader of the resistance, John Conner (Christian Bale) continues the war on Skynet which is building bigger and more advance T-Model series Terminators that have been trying to end his life since childhood. With the arrival of a mysterious Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) fresh from death row, his vision of the future is turned upside down.

Although Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was largely seen as unsuccessful it did end on a bang, a very big bang indeed as the chain of events kicked off Judgment day.

In the years after judgment day as group’s of misfit resistance fighters live their lives in hiding in post apocalyptic cities, engaged in an endless game of hide and seek from Hunter Killers - in full on War of the Worlds mode - scour the landscape for human’s to harvest for experimentation!

As a rule of thumb sequels generally tend to lack what made their predecessors so successful and this certainly applies to Salvation. It was always going to be a tough job for any director to match the brilliance of Cameron’s first two films and when Joseph McGinty (or McG as he likes to be known) came on bored the fans were anything but rapturous. More famed for his camp reboot of the Charlie’s Angels franchise he had a massive chance here to redeem himself as a man to watch out for.

For the most part he’s been fairly successful, Salvation easily topping T3 and as a stand alone film it works very well. The action is choreographed well and while it could easily have become a boring series of man on machine fights there are plenty of new robotic killers to keep them feeling fresh. Although at times the editing can be jarring it’s only on the odd occasion and it never becomes a major issue. Another area in which I was disappointedly surprised was with the films score. I felt a jolt of excitement seeing Danny Elfman’s name fade onto the screen but overall I felt the music was much bigger than was called for making more of the film than was needed.

The acting is also fairly decent although many of the most rounded characters aren’t given enough time to complete their arcs as successfully as they could have and lacked heart and soul leaving us with very little to care about. Many of the more exciting ideas from the original script have been changed in favor of giving the role of Conner more weight but it just doesn’t work, you have to ask yourself how much the film would actually change if you removed him entirely!

Of all the cast Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese and Moon Bloodgood as a battle hardened fighter pilot are the stand outs with Christian Bale bringing exactly what you would expect from the role of Conner, although this is definitely one of the rare times in which he delivers a poorer performance, maintaining his raspy Batman voice throughout. Sam Worthington makes a decent enough portrayal of a man out of time although his performance at times seems stolid. I couldn’t decide if this was an acting choice for a man playing a robot that thinks he’s a man or if Worthington just needed more attention, following his relationship with Kyle Reese would have been a far more interesting main focus and allow more originality.

McG seems to have taken influence from Michael Bay in the way the action unfolds with more than a passing resemblance to Transformers and the film is filled with the usual back catalogue of quotes, “Come with me if you want to live” and “’I’ll be back” make welcome nods to the previous films.

Taking a slightly softer 12a rating has made the film more appealing to a younger audience while in some respects is a smart move it’s also one reason that the film loses some of it’s pull for the older crowd. Terminator’s no longer carry the unrelenting unstoppable menace that we’re used to and seem far too easy to kill off. The film also chose’s style over substance adding to the loss of connection with the main characters. The slightly abrupt ending leaves us unsure of what we’re leaving behind, unable to really judge if this is part of a new series of films or just a one off return.

Despite and overly predicable plot and no new surprises, overall this was a hugely enjoyable 2 hours and nobody can deny how much fun the film is, although past that it fails to deliver much else. Those with a good knowledge of the Terminator history and complex timeline will have more to complain about but if you take it for what it is you won’t be disappointed.

*** (Add a bit more if you don’t expect too much)