Hey all, Wasted here, writing what will hopefully be my first of many bulletins for OHC. I’m planning on more movie reviews, gadget reviews, and who knows what else. I’m open to suggestions if anybody wants to make one and who knows, maybe I can talk a model into letting me interview her. So, without getting further sidetracked, here we go with a review for Terminator: Salvation. Yes, there are spoilers so stop reading now if you want to be left in the dark!
This has been a difficult review to write simply because I’m so divided on the movie. My expectations for the movie weren’t high. They handed a struggling series to a music video director who helmed two of the worst movies ever to hit the screen (Charlie’s Angels). However my expectations for the series itself is high. It’s one of the most groundbreaking influential sci-fi stories ever conceived and has the potential for greatness that most don’t. What we’re given is a movie with enough good things to like, but enough bad things to ask, "WTF were they thinking?".
What was to like? Well, Sam Worthington’s performance as Marcus Wright was good, in spite of the horrible script he was given to work with (more on that later) he carries the movie well and while he may not be billed as such, he is the main character. Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese was good as well. You might recognize him from the latest Star Trek movie in which he played Chekov. His take as a young Kyle Reese actually made me want to see how he grows into the fighter that is sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor. The action scenes were executed well. They were shot in a manner where you could see what was going on and didn’t get lost in the spectacle in front of you. It made me feel like I was a part of it. The look and feel of the post nuclear world was perfect. It was dark, dirty, and depressing which was the perfect backdrop for the film. The T-600 Terminators had an excellent design. Big, bulky, oily, with the bad rubber skin as described in the first Terminator. The best thing about the movie is at the end, when they let loose the new T-800 model (Schwarzenegger’s model) on John Connor. They digitally put Schwarzenegger’s face from the first Terminator on the body of an actor that was built just like him. The look brought back the same feeling I got from the first movie. A tense, uncertain feeling from watching a relentless, unflinching killing machine do what it was built to do. Honestly, this part alone made the price of admission worth it.
What was not to like? The script was horrid. The dialogue was uninspired, dull, and there were times where they stated the obvious like it was some great revelation. I was still waiting for the point to be made when they cut to the next scene. There are also parts that make no sense. In the beginning, Marcus Wright is being visited by Dr. Serena Kogan on death row. The visit takes place in his cell, which didn’t seem very likely to me as she is just a civillian. There is also a line that is taken straight from the TV show Lost and was completely pointless. This wasn’t the only deja vu moment as the harvesters felt like they were borrowed from War of the Worlds, a semi-truck chase that was part Mad Max, part Terminator 2 and 3, and a "forbidden love" aspect between Moon Bloodgood’s character Blair Williams and Marcus Wright that has been done time and time again and was completely unnecessary in this movie. The end of the movie is also cringe worthy. I won’t mention it here as I don’t want to give away too much, but it was almost laughable. The worst part of it for me, however were the editing mistakes that were plainly obvious and had no business being in a movie of this size.
Final verdict? It’s hard to give one as I left the movie not knowing what to make of it. I’m not upset that I spent $20 to go see it so I can say it’s worth seeing, just don’t expect to be blown away.
2 and 1/2 stars (Out of 5)