Film Review - Terminator Salvation

Christian Bale and Sam Worthington in McG's Franchise Relaunch

Jun 19, 2009

The 4th Terminator movie Terminator Salvation or T4 is set in the future of 2018 - after Judgement Day has happened the survivors form a resistance to fight the machines

The hotly anticipated Summer blockbuster Terminator Salvation is a high octane action adventure. Starring the ubiquitous Christian Bale (fresh from The Dark Knight and soon to be seen in Michael Mann's Public Enemies) Terminator Salvation exploded onto screens amid a flurry of publicity, both good and bad. It promised to relaunch the whole franchise.

Life after Judgement Day

The most tantalising aspect of Terminator Salvation was definitely the idea of finally being able to witness life after Judgement Day. In previous Terminator films, brief glimpses of a future world ruled by machines provided much food for thought. Memories of Kyle Reese crawling through underground bunkers in the original Terminator film and of humanoid and vehicular terminators attacking the resistance in Terminator 2, were set to be completely blown out of the water by the entirely future-set new Terminator Salvation movie. Has it managed to achieve this? Well, not quite.

The Machines in Terminator Salvation

Sometimes with films less is more. In the early Terminator films, the relentless pursuit of Sarah and John Connor by cyborgs who “absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead” provided a pulsating, adrenaline-heavy chase element to the narratives. It was unbelievably exciting and scary. With Terminator Salvation, the fear element that was present with a single terminator is dissipated. T4 is full of huge, mind-blowing new machines. From the enormous harvesters to the vicious little hydrobots. They look amazing, and they are certainly worth the price of a cinema ticket to see, but are they as scary as a single T-800 that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger? No they are not.

Christian Bale as John Connor

Terminator Salvation has set out its store as a film about the war between humans and machines. Its landscape is much broader in scope than any previous Terminator film, with far more characters to follow. This is where Salvation slips up. After all the build up and anticipation of Christain Bale in the lead role of John Connor, he's criminally under used. It's not that the new characters are bad – Sam Worthington as Marcus is absolutely brilliant, as is Moon Bloodgood as his love interest Blair – it's just that Terminator Salvation neglects the supposed hero of the franchise John Connor.

Terminator Salvation – A Fun but Flawed Script

The script is a convoluted mash of plots, as we follow the story of Cyberdyne Systems first foray into decent camouflage for their killer cyborgs, using living human flesh. There's also the story of John Connor fighting for, although not yet leading, the resistance. And then there's the introduction of a brave and resourceful teenage Kyle Reese, as yet unaware of his importance in the battle. Throw into the mix a pregnant Kate Connor, a brief homage to Arnie, and an assortment of familiar Terminator phraseology - “I'll be back”, “Come with me if you want to live” - and what comes out is a real dolly mixture film. It has some great moments, plenty of talking points but no real nourishment.

The fact that Kate and John Connor were expecting a baby was all but ignored, when surely this would have been the perfect time for a wise scriptwriter to place Kate in jeopardy. Instead, she did little more than sit on the sidelines, waiting for all the soldiers to return. Kate would probably have made a better hostage than Kyle. As great as Anton Yelchin was in the role, there was no particular reason to have featured the young Kyle Reese in Terminator Salvation. His was a story that could have waited until the next installment. Reportedly, two more Terminator films are planned to follow Salvation, so why was there such a frenzied attempt to pile so much into this one? A little more focus would have benefited the picture enormously.

Terminators Come back Stronger

Terminator Salvation is fast moving and full of action, as is par for the course from director McG. The actors are all top notch, and the cinematography is a joy to behold. From the desolate war ravaged remains of LA to the glints of light shining from a metallic cyborg's skull, the film is great to look at. It just lacks a strong narrative for John Connor. It's also, in comparison to the early Terminator films, highly deficient in peril. Terminator films need more than a bit of Disney standard 'mild peril'. The machines are designed to kill, without remorse, after all. Hopefully, the next installment will see the machines come back stronger than ever. There's got to be one of those “how the hell will they defeat it?” moments, which Salvation was sadly lacking. Terminator films are nothing without a good fight.

Further reading: Read about Christian Bale's infamous rant during the making of Terminator Salvation here.

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