TERMINATOR SALVATION

“TERMINATOR SALVATION” (Christian Bale & Sam Worthington)

This was my first Terminator movie & I’m pretty sure it will be my last since the worst part of this film were the nonsensical time traveling references to the previous films, plus I was under the impression that this would be an ‘actors’ Terminator in that The Governator would not appear; & though technically speaking Arnuld doesn’t have a cameo, his ‘image’ does, which helped crippled an already shaky plot.

Christian Bale brought a level of intelligence to the Batman franchise but he couldn’t do anything to elevate the I. Q. of this ‘disaster' flick. & that’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the movie on some levels, the basic idea of a being that used to be human & doesn’t know that he’s been rebuilt as a robot/human hybrid was an interesting one – the fact that they inserted John Conner & his teenaged father into the plot turned it into a befuddling muddled puddle which made little to no sense.

Sam Worthington plays Marcus, the human who is sentenced to death in 2003 & donates his body to science before the sentence is carried out. He then finds himself alive in 2018 in a world where robots have taken over the planet & are hunting down & either killing or enslaving human refugees. Until he is damaged while trying to save John Conner’s father, Kyle Reese, Marcus appears to be a normal human being. Marcus also meets & saves the life of one of Conner’s ‘men’ Blair, a hot Asian girl (Moon Bloodgood – That’s the name she gave) So when Conner tries to kill Marcus despite the fact the newcomer has done nothing but help his cause – as well as keep him alive by saving his future father, it doesn’t make sense! (I seem to be quoting the late Johnny Cochran quite a bit lately) Which brings me to another confusing moment - & since this film has been out for a while I’m sure everyone who wants to see it, has, but without spoiling anything for those who may be waiting for the DVD to come out – I’ll just point out that at the end of the movie, Marcus’s ‘grand gesture’ doesn’t make sense either - the sacrifice he makes wasn't necessary. See, this is what happens when you start a franchise that relies on time travel in EVERY episode – things get bogged down in nonsense. Time travel is a nifty little gimmick to use once, maybe twice, but when you let it become a ‘regular’ part of your franchise’s existence; you’ve turned an impossible circumstance to begin with into a mockery of itself. Traveling backward in time is impossible – You can’t recreate that which has already happened, so any storyline using that plot twist is a complete fantasy. In order to make Terminator’s ‘fantasy’ future world more believable they needed to stop relying on the time traveling gimmick. 2018 isn’t that far away (Is 2018 the new 1984?) The world that was depicted in Terminator Salvation was too much in ruin to be believable as well. I complain about all of this because I did like the idea of ‘Marcus’; a man that doesn’t realize he’s been Steve Austin’d. & this would have been a decent film if it WASN’T terminator’d.

The acting here was fine, despite the convoluted plot. Anton Yelchin (The new ‘Chekov’) wasn’t very believable as Kyle Reese only because I couldn’t picture him as Christian Bale’s father no matter how far I tried to stretch my imagination! Worthington & Bale almost made it worth seeing – those who think Worthington ‘out-acted’ Bale are as confused as this franchise – Sam had the better role & did a fantastic job with it, but Christian, who didn’t have much to do other than shoot at a green screen, shined in his rare opportunities to actually ‘act’ - I especially liked the scene where John asks Marcus “You think you’re human?”
& finally, a big surprise to me was Bryce Dallas Howard (Opie Cunningham’s little girl) Not that she could act, she’s proven to be a capable actress in the past, but that she actually looks kind of hot in some scenes... Oh, & the Asian chick with the weird name reminds me of another complaint I have; The ‘head’ computer that controls the robots appears to Marcus as the doctor (Helena Bonham Carter) that asked him to sign over his body to science after his death because ‘it’ wanted to appear as someone he’d feel ‘comfortable with – ‘It’ then changes into John Conner, Kyle Reese & then back to the doctor again... why wouldn’t it appear to him as Blair, the Asian girl that he adored? The time traveling aspect made this film confusing enough, but that one was a no-brainer...