Terminator Salvation

Copyright 2009, Warner Bros. Pictures

At its best, Terminator Salvation is too mediocre for its own good. At its worst, the fourth film in the Terminator series is howlingly bad, a groaner that will live on in late-night cable television, an utter obscurity. Think of it this way: how well do you remember 2003's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines? Six years from now, you will remember Terminator Salvation just as strongly.

Now, to be fair to the director of this latest entry, McG, things could have been...worse. I'm not sure how much worse (although the supposed alternate ending, in which John Connor, under the guise of Marcus Wright, kills everyone sounds like a terrible idea), but...yeah, the movie could have been more awful. As it stands, the film stands as an embarrassment for the more respected people involved in the process. For a guy like McG, who still finds it hard for people to take him seriously thanks to his goofy nickname (and buddy, if you've got a problem with that, just use your FULL NAME), it's hard to be too critical. I mean, let's be frank: I've seen both Charlie's Angels movies, and compared to them, Terminator Salvation is a masterpiece.

Let's start with Christian Bale, who stars as John Connor, the famed leader of the human resistance against the Terminators and other machines concocted by Skynet, a military defense program that becomes self-aware and goes crazy against its creators. Now, rumor has it that Bale was originally approached to play Marcus Wright, the convict who donates his body to Cyberdyne, the company that created Skynet, right before being executed. I'm not sure that Bale is great as John Connor, but how much better could he have been as Wright? The man who plays the latter character, Australian newcomer Sam Worthington (who will be seen later this year in James Cameron's Avatar), isn't all bad; in fact, as soon as he can control the accent of the character he's playing in a film, he'll be pretty interesting to watch.

But back to Bale. Think back, if you can, to this past January. A most infamous audio recording that now lives in YouTube infamy was revealed; in it, Bale goes apeshit on the director of photography for Terminator Salvation, Shane Hurlbut. The context that was later provided for this rant was that Hurlbut was walking through a scene that Bale and Bryce Dallas Howard (as Kate Connor, John's pregnant wife) were attempting to go through, a scene that was apparently so intense that Bale wasn't able to calm himself down because of how riled up he'd made himself to make sure the performance worked. About halfway through Terminator Salvation, I realized that I wasn't completely sure that scene had occurred yet. As it stood, Bale and Howard weren't on screen together much, and their time together consisted of hugging, kissing, and...well, not much else. The only other major scene the characters share together has been slightly spoiled in the TV spots (suffice to say, one of the many famous one-liners associated with this franchise appears). Guess what? Not an intense scene. Now, my moviegoing friend pointed out that the scene may well have been cut, but...come on. How could such an "intense" scene be excised from a movie that tries so very hard to be...intense?

In short, what we have here is a situation where the people involved tried too hard to make things seem more weighty than they were. McG promised fans that this film would be rated R, and it's rated PG-13. He mentioned that Jonathan Nolan, the man who co-wrote The Dark Knight, was behind the script; though Nolan is considered an integral part, the sole credited writers are John Brancato and Michael Ferris. And let's get to that script. One of the reasons I can't beat up too hard on a guy like McG is because, I presume, he didn't write some of the truly awful clunkers this movie offers up. "Now I know what death tastes like." "We have to stay alive...in HERE and in HERE." I don't want to keep recounting these lines for fear that I get a massive headache, but you get the idea. One of the many reasons that this new Terminator fails is because of how bad the dialogue is. Christian Bale, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin (as the uber-important Kyle Reese), and Helena Bonham Carter (yes, that Helena Bonham Carter) are all great actors, but if you give them shit to say, they can only do so much.

Another major flaw the film has is that it just makes no sense. Now, I realize that, in some ways, none of the movies in this franchise make sense. We're talking about movies that feature so much time traveling, they bend in on themselves. But, and if you can answer me this, you win a shiny nickel...how, in the year 2018, could Skynet know that Kyle Reese is the father of John Connor? Now, as audience members with a presumed knowledge of the series, we know this is true. We know that, at some point in his life, Kyle Reese will be a very important person. But how does Skynet know in 2018? At this point, Kyle is established as a goofy teenager who hasn't earned his stripes yet (literally, by the way, in one of the dumber stories). How do they know? And, even if they do, why do they waste time by not killing him when they have the chance?

Lots of unanswered questions pop up here, but if you've ever wanted to know how John got that scar of his that we see in the second Terminator film, you will know. If you want to know what Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like in a slightly cartoonish state, you will know. If you want to know what kind of movie makes T3 look like a classic, you will know. And, if you want to know how shameless McG and company are with regards to stretching this series out as far as it can go, oh my God, you will know.