Terminator Salvation: More Human Than Human
Yeah, that’s right, you stupid robot. Pull my finger…
Rating: 5 out of 10
I’m going to change up my tactic for you. I’m going to make an effort to increase your enjoyment of this movie without giving away any type of spoilers. Great debates have been held inside my head about the formation of this review, so let’s see if I can get them all to come together in print and actually make sense. If I get lost along the way, please send a search party and ask them to bring Nerd Rope.
Terminator Salvation brings the robot-battling franchise charging forward into the year 2018 and lands us deep in the war between machines and humans. The humans are being driven underground while the machines seem to be gaining more and more ground every day. When a miraculous tool falls into the hands of the humans which could swing the momentum their way and possibly end the war, John Connor has to make a choice between following logic and following his instincts.
Here’s the hint I’m going to offer you in hopes it will help you enjoy the movie just a little more: John Connor (Christian Bale) is not the main character in this movie! The trailer and the story arc up to this point have built him up to be the main focus, but while watching the movie your attention is drawn toward two other people: Marcus (Sam Worthington) and the teenage version of Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). These two characters, greatly helped by the actors portraying them, provide numerous layers and poignant moments and steal the focus away from the top billed Bale. Bale suffers both from narrow development of his character and one-note deliverance throughout the film. For large stretches he just feels like Batman without the mask. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy him as Batman, but in those films we get to see him as Bruce Wayne as well and he achieves a balance between different sides of the character. Salvation doesn’t really give him that chance, so the blame doesn’t fall completely on him. Worthington and Yelchin, on the other hand, really become the main story of the movie and steal the spotlight. Worthington shows great dramatic range, but he does lose a step during a romantic subplot with Moon Bloodgood. Yelchin, who also plays Chekov in the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek (so far the summers best flick), lands another major role in terms of storyline and mythological importance. As the young Kyle Reese he single-handedly represents the past and the future for the life of John Connor, which is a lot of weight to be shouldering on such a young actor, but Yelchin proves he is up to the task. Displaying innocence and hardened street smarts at the same time, he manages to bring the much lacking human element to this movie front and center.
There is an argument to be made that movies in this genre are not here to astound us with great acting or well thought out plot development. They are here to create insane CGI and never-before-seen special effects to literally knock us out of our cushioned seats. In that realm, Salvation did an exceedingly good job. The robots were bigger, the explosions were louder and you could literally hear each and every gear and servo inside the machines as they whizzed towards our woefully under-prepared human survivors. There is a pair of impressive chase sequences which included some very unique moments and that kept people glued to the screen. Very little of the action seems to move the plot or story along though and in the end you begin to wonder what it was all for; you almost feel the entire film didn’t even need to happen. No matter how deep a movie is inside the action genre, the audience needs to feel that the story had a distinct purpose and Salvation fails to completely deliver in the end.
The decision to focus more on the effects than story falls in the lap of director McG, who gained massive exposure when he brought the 70s iconic TV show Charlie’s Angels to the big screen. It doesn’t seem like he’s really changed that much in his style since then though. It is still all about flash and visual onslaught to keep the people bouncing in their seats without a foundation to make any of it meaningful. Charlie’s Angels was meant to be summertime fluff, so it worked out well, but Salvation has a darkness and grit which needs to be motivated in the writing and direction as well and that just didn’t happen. To extend the olive branch slightly towards McG, he was definitely weighted down by massive paradoxical plot holes in the film created long before he ever dreamed of taking the reins of this apocalyptic franchise. Despite the poor directing and plot development flaws, the box office numbers are not terrible ($68 million opening weekend), so you can be sure the graveled and gruff voice of Bale will be heading our way in a couple years to remind us, “You are the resistance.”
Recommendation: If you are interested at all in seeing this, do yourself a huge favor and see it in the theater. The sound and picture are a large part of what makes this watchable, so don’t discredit yourself with lesser visual and aural impact.
Added recommendation to McG: Leave out the Arnold cameo next time. Seriously. Really.
Tags: anton yelchin, arnold schwartzenegger, bryce dallas howard, christian bale, cyborgs, fiction, future, McG, moon bloodgood, movie, opinion, review, sam worthington, sci-fi, science fiction, screenwriting, skynet, terminator salvation, time travel
DandyID
Facebook
Twitter