Terminator: Salvation!

Hello and welcome to my first film review! Yes, much like my idea for a beer blog and my desire to write, it seems that a forum and an idea have once again come together and given a chance to express my inane thoughts! Funny how that works, I guess the universe really does have a sense of humor. And as usual, I value feedback and other opinions here, so please feel free to drop a line and offer your own thoughts on all the subject matter I choose to review. After all, good films and cult classics need to be praised, and trashy stuff needs to be trashed! Even if it serves no constructive purpose, its fun! That being said, let's get to my first review…

As promised, I've decided to dedicate my first post to the relatively recent Terminator: Salvation, the fourth and most recent installment in the Terminator franchise. I say most recent (as opposed to say, last) because of the rather shameless hints they dropped that there would be more coming. But more on that later… And, just to be a nice guy, I've also decided to throw in some markers that looks like this (Background—>), (Content—>), (Synopsis—>). This way, you can skip whatever you don't want to read, focus on the content of the movie, or just avoid all the background and read the review part. Yes, I know I'm verbose, but let it never be said I'm not also considerate! So, let's get down to business! Terminator: Salvation!

(Background —>)

When I first heard the film was coming out, I was hopeful. In fact, I was downright excited, seeing as how the last installment (Terminator 3) was a relative flop-fest that seemed totally unnecessary and was generally panned by critics and fans. So in a way, this movie was supposed to do for Terminator what the Dark Knight (also starring Christian Bale) had done for the Batman franchise. My hopes were high, and I can honestly say I was genuinely impressed with the movie for the first hour or so. As promised as hinted at in the previews, it was action-packed and pretty gritty, presenting the world of Judgement Day and the Resistance. And since that's what fans came to see, I began to feel like the movie was doing a good job and delivering on its promises.

Then, the climax came… and all that fell apart. Yep, the movie had the dubious honor of being pretty good up until the ending, and then we are left with a contrived explanation for everything that happened that leaves the viewer thinking, "Really? That's what you're doing with this? REALLY?" That ending left me with a bad taste in my mouth which only managed to fester the further I got away from the theater. What should have been a fun movie that finished off the franchise was instead an contrived, forced story with a heavy-handed message about sacrifice and redemption, with an over the top and totally implausible climax that was somehow meant to be open-ended. This last aspect of the film was especially bothersome, since it felt like a crass attempt to hedge the movie's bets, letting the audience know another movie could be coming, if only this one made enough money. Ick!

But I digress. To recap, this movie was predominately supposed to explain how the resistance took down the machines in the future. That was the whole purpose to the original movies, John Conner leads the resistance to victory, so Skynet decided to send Terminators back in time (three times over) to kill him. In the first two movies, we are dealt a temporal paradox in the form of the original Terminator (played by Arny) and the resistance fighter Kyle Reese. Essentially, the point of both movies was that by sending these warriors back in time to ensure the future, they effectively created it. Kyle Reese became Connor's father, the destroyed Arny machine becomes the basis for Skynet's creations. And in movie two, the characters break with paradox by destroying Skynet and every last trace of the machines. Cool, smart, and virtually seamless, since the rise of the machines was not totally ensured until Arny himself was destroyed, thus no obsessive critic could say "if they blew up Skynet, shouldn't Arny and the T1000 just, like, disappear?" But of course, Arny and the studios decided a third had to be made. Difficult, since the third movie took place after Judgement Day was supposed to have happened (Aug 29th, 1997). How were they to explain this, you say? Simple, they didn't stop it, they only postponed it. It's inevitable, and everything they do in the third movie only ensures that it happens as foretold. Not so smart and seamless, but what the hell? It opened the franchise up again, which was what many fans wanted. Terminator 1 and 2 were box office smashes and critical delights, cult classics and just downright awesome! The studios couldn't end it all there, so one crappy movie to get things rolling again could be seen as forgivable, provided the fourth one put things back on track. Right?

Yeah, well… that might have been the case had the movie delivered on what was supposed to be its aims. One, show the world of the future, post-Judgement Day, where the machines and resistance are battling. Two, explain how Connor and the resistance brought them down, bring us to the point where the Terminators were sent back in the first place. That's all… just work within the framework established by the other movies, don't do anything stupid like try to throw in another paradox story or up the ante with an even bigger crisis! But of course, that's what they did.

(Content—>)

To being, the movie introduces us to Marcus, the convict who gave his body to science via Skynet, we are brought to the future where Connor is a player in the resistance, but not yet its leader. He stumbles onto a facility in an opening action sequence that is cool, but kinda inexplicable (why, for example, did those machines set off a nuke in the distance?) After all that, we are treated to two plot tidbits. One: the raid put the resistance in possession of a master hit list the machines have been compiling, everyone they wanna kill! The name at the top of the list, followed shortly thereafter by Connor's and the names of all the resistance leaders… Kyle Reese! Cue scary music! Oh, and the other tidbit, the resistance has figured out a way to shut the machines down using some kind of high-frequency thing, and they are planning their final strike with it on Skynet itself.

Then, out comes Marcus, the confused and obvious man-machine hybrid. The audience has the benefit of knowing this already, the only question is, what the heck is his purpose? Why was he created and what is he going to do? Well, after wandering from the facility the resistance just attacked, he runs into Kyle Reese. Through him he learns of the resistance and Connor, and then the boy and his little mute friend are captured. He then runs into a resistance fighter, played by the always smoking Moon Bloodgood! A budding romance forms, even though the two have absolutely no chemistry and the whole thing feels forced (but on behalf of men everywhere I think I can safely say, that shower scene was pretty damn hot!) Oh, and speaking of forced, were also treated to some obvious hints that Marcus is, despite his past, a nice man who's looking for redemption. Then, of course, the wandering continues and they get back to the resistance base, where Connor just happens to be, and Marcus' secret is out just as soon as he steps on a landmine. HE'S A MACHINE! (more scary music!)

Now Connor is left to ponder over the mystery of the man. Here a Terminator has been walked right into his lair, is telling him he needs their help to rescue the kid who will grow up to be Connor's father. The kid is currently in the machines HQ, and an attack on that place is impending. We can smell the crisis looming at this point, as we are all are aware that if the attack is carried out and Kyle dies, that Connor will never exist and the machines will win. Things are beginning to make sense. So what does Connor do? Let's Marcus go because he thinks he has a shot and getting into the Skynet base, and follows him in himself, after he's given all resistance cells who listen to his pirate radio broadcasts a message not to follow their orders and hold off on the attack. And with Marcus inside the facility, things finally come together. Some programming things takes over, he wakes up after being repaired by the machines, and the big, mean Skynet computer lets him in on everything.

And, as I said before, the explanation is bunk! The part about the "signal" was kind of neat, its a Trojan Horse, you see. Instead of actually shutting down the machines, its a tracking signal which the machines are now using to locate all the resistance's positions and destroy them. But the rest? Bunk! I know at this point they want tplo make us think that all hope is lost so we start caring and get all emotionally involved, but man, what a stupid attempt at tying all the loose threads together! It simply made no sense: Marcus was designed with the foresight that a man-machine hybrid would somehow manage to wander the desert, find Reese, find Connor, and deliver them both to Skynet so they could be killed? That was his purpose from the beginning, and what seemed like coincidences was in fact Skynet pulling his strings? Really? I mean, aside from seeming highly contrived and way too convenient, the explanation is devoid of logic! If the machines wanted to do what they've done many times over now and send out a machine to get Connor, and by extension Reese, why not just program him to kill them? Hell, they had Reese in their clutches within the first hour of the movie, why not kill the boy on site? He was top of their hit list for Christ sakes, and Connor's father, so why not shoot him then and there? Wouldn't that make Connor disappear from the face of the Earth, make their victory inevitable? But even more nonsensical was the fact that Marcus, now supposedly under Skynet's control, reaches into his neck and yanks out the chip in there, cutting his strings, and then goes off to save them both. A chip in his neck? That's how Skynet controlled him? Why not his brain? Why not somewhere where he couldn't get it? In fact, what the hell was the point in letting him keep his brain and heart, but turning them rest of him into hardware? The flesh I can understand, you gotta put a facade on his exterior. And even keeping his brain intact could be seen as a way of making sure he retained his humanity, that way no one would guess he was an AI by his total lack of feeling… but the rest of him? Well, with the heart, that was just an obvious Deus ex Machina which comes out at the end. But once again, I'm getting ahead of myself…

The other problem I had with this ending was obvious. How does Skynet know how things are supposed to unfold? I know that at this point in the story, everyone knows about the prophecies and the future, as told by Connor, but he has all this knowledge because he was told about it by those who were actually THERE! Kyle Reese told his mom what was to come and she told him, simple! The machines, they got no crystal balls, they got no people from the future telling them how its going to be. So how do they know Reese is Connor's father? How do they know Connor is the one who will destroy them? How, for that matter, co they know that they've repeatedly failed to "get John Connor" as Skynet puts it? It wasn't until Connor and the resistance had them on the ropes and were delivering the final death blow that Skynet even decided to send Terminators back in time, as we are told in the first movie. So really, how does Skynet know anything? Some explanations of how they figured this out might have actually helped tie things together more plausibly, in my opinion. Not to mention some indication of how they building a time machine in the first place to send Terminators back in time. It's been foretold, so shouldn't the machines be actively working on that? Wouldn't now be the time for Connor to send Reese into the machine so he can go back and do what he was supposed to do, i.e. save his mother's life, knocking her up with him in the process? Ah, whatever, there's enough wrong with this movie without over-thinking things. Let's just get to the end!

So, to summarize, Connor rescues Reese, Marcus rescues Connor, and they decide to set the machines fuel cells to explode. These just happen to sitting around since the base is also a factory where the Terminators are built. And to top off this unlikely ending, the resistance flies in to their rescue and everyone is pulled out before Skynet goes boom! Ugh! If its so easy to get into Skynet, why the hell didn't they do it before? Shouldn't this big, important base have some kind of… oh, I don't know, defenses??? In fact, we already got to see these big gun towers protecting the place when Marcus walked in. What the hell happened to them. A quick scene or one line of dialogue, say you had a hard time punching through, or Marcus and Connor somehow disabled them from the inside! Show some people dying or some such shit, it's not that hard! Don't just have your heroes kick in the front door and walk out like it was no big deal! Then, back at the resistance base, the medics declare Connor will die. Hold on, I thought, were they really going to kill him off now? Now that they won, were they going to sacrifice their main character? Such a move can only be considered risky and respectable, but of course, they didn't! Remember Marcus' real human heart? Yeah, well, he decides to commit the ultimate act of sacrifice by giving it to Connor, thus fulfilling his final shot for redemption. Personally, I would have thought saving Connor and Reese the first time and ensuring the machines lost the war would have done it, but what do I know? Then, in a final crappy move, Connor has a voiceover explaining that in spite of the fact that the big bad machine that controls all the machines is dead, there is still danger. In the form of Skynet's "Global Network", which they still have to take down. What the hell man? Wasn't the whole idea that taking down the central AI would knock out the machines everywhere? Why is there more to do if you just whacked their nerve center? Did you really think the audience would be screaming out for more, or was that just in case the studio decided to squeeze the franchise for more blood down the road?

(Synopsis—>)

Okay, to be fair, there were some things I liked about this movie. The action sequences, for one. We did get to see some pretty cool scenes where Gatling-gun toting Terminators shot up the streets, and HK's doing aerial combat and big towering tanks blowing shit up. And the robot bikes and other assorted killing machines were neat as well. But those strengths were not played upon nearly enough in this movie. Also, the homages that were paid to the originals: Marcus doing the whole "you hit me, I look at you angrily before taking you down" thing that Arny perfect in movie two, Bale saying "I'll be back", the scene with Guns and Roses music and him riding a bike, the cameo by the Arny-bot; those were all pretty cool too. But none of that could save this movie from its forced ending, its heavy-handed theme of redemption, or the fact that the movie should have ended with Skynet being destroyed. The romance story is also pretty stiff, the actors themselves just don't have the right kind of chemistry to sell it, and the dialogue between them is pretty damn cheesy. Marcus: "I'm not a good man!" Moon Bloodgood: "You are, you just don't know it yet…" Yeah… yeah. But what was the most disappointing was that instead of redeeming the franchise after Terminator 3, the movie ended up doing the same thing, cashing in on the franchise with a movie that was all flash and little substance. I could be wrong, maybe that was their intention from the beginning. But it seemed to me that the whole point of making a fourth movie was to end the series with a bang. Instead, we got a whimper and were openly told we could expect more, should they decide to make another. I don't know about you, but if they do decide to make T5, I'll wait to download. That's right, I won't even rent it! Take that, money-grubbing studios!

Terminator Salvation: 2.5/5