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May
20, 2009 by Jason P. Hunt
In this day and age of the reboot, it’s inevitable that the Terminator
franchise is back. And given the fact that the last two movies told
similar stories, it was a foregone conclusion that the story would have
to be different from anything we’ve seen already. How many times could
we put up with a smaller, less imposing bad robot coming back through
time to kill John Connor, only to be defeated at the last minute by
Arnold
?
So, Terminator Salvation tells a completely different
story: In 2018, John Connor leads a cell of the human resistance against
Skynet and the machines that are trying to wipe out humanity. In the
midst of this mayhem and chaos (with plenty of explosions), Marcus
Wright awakens after being executed in 2003 and donating his body to
Cyberdyne.
Wright ultimately connects with
a teenage Kyle Reese, who leads the “LA resistance” (which isn’t
all that). When Reese is captured by Skynet, Wright has to come to grips
with his own status in the war and attempt a rescue. In the meantime,
Connor is fighting the leadership of the resistance, who are set to
destroy a central hub of Skynet in spite of the fact that they hold
thousands of human prisoners.
That’s the long and short of
it. And overall, it’s a fun ride. It’s refreshingly different from
the other Terminator films so as not to be predictable. And for
the die-hard Terminator fans, every expected Easter egg is there:
- “I’ll be back.”
- The photo of Sarah Connor
from the first movie
- The robot foot smashing a
human skull
- Hunter-killer ships
- The head slam and slow turn
back
- “There is no fate but what
we make.”
- “Come with me if you want
to live.”
But it almost seems like there are two separate stories being
told. There is the story of John Connor and his struggle to become a
leader in the resistance. And then there is the Marcus story, which
really dominates the film. And it is Marcus’ story that has a more
substantial arc, which I guess makes sense. We all know John Connor’s
story. We’ve known it since the first movie, so there’s really no
suspense there. Especially since this story takes place in 2018, a full
eleven years before the time travel events take place.
But each story is solid, with a good sense of pace and balance.
And it’s a logical progression from the end of Terminator 3: Rise
of the Machines. Although this resistance seems a lot more organized
and better equipped than the resistance of old. But that’s to be
expected, since this production had a bigger budget.
I have to admit, when I first heard that McG was directing, I was
a bit concerned. This is the same guy who did Charlie’s Angels,
and that was a bit off-putting for me. Plus, the casting of Christian
Bale felt like a stunt. And it seemed like there were a few folks at the
screening to see Bale, and not the Terminator. But after the first
fifteen minutes or so, I found myself appreciating what McG brought to
the table. Just enough handheld camera to feel like you’re in the
action, with plenty of steady shots to balance the pace (are you
listening, JJ Abrams?). And the color palette was just the right visual
touch: bleached out and desaturated exteriors in the blasted wasteland
of post-nuclear war zones, blue and cold colors anywhere near Skynet,
and Earth tones for the resistance.
Now, for a few niggling things.
Mad Max would feel right at home here. The dead cars on the road,
the blasted wastelands, the crumbling buildings in
Los Angeles
… it feels right, but at times it bothered me. There was almost too
much of this. Between 1997 and 2018, I would expect things to be a
little more barren.
Occasionally, the handheld camera was almost too much. But just as
I started to think that, it would steady out for a while. But I’m
still not a big fan of the undercranked, Saving Private Ryan war
footage that seems to permeate every action movie nowadays. Abrams &
Co. went overboard with this, but McG seems to know when to pull back
from it.
And there’s one terrible edit between scenes, probably where the
topless shot of Moon Bloodgood originally existed. It’s an ugly edit,
and it felt like something was missing. There should have been something
in between the two scenes, because some time had obviously transpired,
and suddenly there’s a new threat that comes out of nowhere. It’s
the one place where the movie’s internal logic breaks down.
The other thing that bothered me was the big Transformer-like
robot in the middle of the movie. It seems a lot of sci-fi action
pictures are cross-pollinating.
Michael
Bay
has influenced way too many directors with his pyrotechnics. The
Transformer robot here, the Cloverfield beast in Star Trek…
I’d like to have my franchises shaken, but not stirred together into
one big melting pot.
The biggest complaint I have is the sound mix. At times, the
explosions and robot noise overpowered the dialogue. That bugged me,
because it happened more than once.
Christian Bale didn’t need to be in this movie. Anyone could
have played John Connor, and I would have preferred a lesser-known
actor, maybe an unknown. I found myself distracted by Bale’s
performance. He was doing the Batman voice too much, and it felt out of
place.
On the bright side, I was very impressed with Anton Yelchin. He
makes a better Kyle Reese than he does Pavel Chekov. And Sam Worthington
turns in a good performance as Marcus, with Moon Bloodgood giving a
slightly predictable but credible turn as the hardened military girl who
falls for the misfit. It was nice to hear Linda Hamilton’s voice on
the tapes. And the digital
Arnold
really works. That technology has come a long way since Star Wars:
Attack of the Clones.
Danny Elfman’s score surprised me enough that I dwelled on it
for quite some time. It didn’t sound like Elfman. The score borrowed
heavily from Brad Fiedel’s original themes.
Overall, I give it a 7.5-8 out of 10. I liked it better than I
liked Star Trek. This is the way you rejuvenate a franchise –
with a good story that actually hangs together and gives the actors
something substantial to work with.
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