J: Writing reviews has apparently created a terrible personality defect. I now go to movies and expect quality in addition to being entertained. While this may well work with most indie and Oscar worthy films, it does not work with films like “Terminator Salvation”. Now, don’t get me wrong, T-S is a perfectly entertaining film but as I sat through the first fifteen or so minutes waiting for the scintillating dialog and fine acting to kick in – and as I was getting ready to be disappointed – my PIC gently reminded me “this ain’t Slumdog, Dudette!” Ah yes, truer words were never spoken! So yes, I put aside the pretentious me and let the Slam Bang Action Flick me just sit back and enjoy! And enjoy we did.T-S puts us squarely in the fight between the machines who initiated Judgment Day (the picture takes place soon after) and the humans left over, but there are a few new plot twists, like the addition of the Death Row inmate Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. Marcus is convinced by Dr. Serena Kogan, played brilliantly albeit quickly by Helena Bonham Carter, of Cyberdyne Systems to donate his body to science. She dangles the hope of humanity in front of him and he takes the bait, possibly to get the skeletal looking Bonham Carter out of his cell. It seems they both had death sentences, his for killing a couple people and hers for cancer. He unknowingly becomes the Terminator prototype but that doesn’t work out exactly as Cyberdyne had planned. Then, whoosh, we are dropped into the center of hell after Judgment Day with John Connor, played by Christian Bale, doing the anti-Terminator stuff we have all grown up with, which is very cool indeed. Because the rest of the movie is the fleshing out of all the loose ends and heretofore unexplained T1 and T2 stuff (don’t know about you but I simply can’t count T3, particularly because it was largely unwatchable) I won’t do any spoiling but get to the really good stuff.
McG is the director. Now before your head explodes like mine almost did, let me share the 411. Joseph “McG” McGinty Nichol (I guess when you have three or four names, you have to shorten it down to something workable) got his start in the music business and, yes he did music videos, which does not always bode well for moving into full-length films. In fact, theaters are littered with those misguided attempts. But happily McG has done a fine job with T-S and clearly has a taste for Terminators in general because he takes great pains to include several homage’s to the earlier pix, including allowing Mr. Bale to speak the legendary “I’ll be back” line and in his own way. There are other assorted and very obvious links to the original two movies but the true stand-out comes at the end with some exceptionally nifty CGI work to take the Terminator full circle – VERY nicely done. But that’s as much as I will tell you because I want you to whoop it up like we did when it gets to that part. Also, BONUS, McG is a Michiganian (no, I never use the goosey sounding term), he was born in Kalamazoo. Now what’s not to like about that? All of the other action variety explosions and such are plentiful and jump-cutty enough to keep your interest. No problems there at all.
But there’s always one, isn’t there? If this is the project Mr. Bale was working on during his infamous meltdown then I would have to say to the meltdownee – get over it! Mr. Bale has a range of two emotions; incredulousness and really pissed off! Obviously, the one that gets the most exercise in this film is the pissed off emo and boy, you just can’t walk off the set and leave that kind of thing behind. Was he a decent John Connor? Certainly. Is he one of the fine actors of our time? Ah, no. With his range of emotions, the obvious choice for his next costar would have to be Naomi Watts, what a dynamic pair THAT would be! Please God, before that happens, please take me!
K: I disagree with J about Mr. Bale's acting. I think he's a very good actor, but his character in this movie only had the two emotions of incredulousness and pissed off. I do agree with J about Naomi Watts, and would also like to add Drew Barrymore to that list. I recently saw her in a movie where her acting was akin to some teenager plucked off his high school stage. However, I am on Team Christian, so rock on Mr. Bale!
