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But this is not the future his mother warned us about. His prophesized leader of the resistance against self-aware machines is now a walkie-talkie jockey under the thumb of General Ashdown (Michael Ironside, a rare match for Bale in sheer vocal authority), far from the Christ figure that his character’s initials and selectively flickering on-screen credit might indicate. In his place has stumbled Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a once-executed murderer who left his body to science in 2003 and yet finds himself alive in 2018 and journeying across the barren wasteland of Southern California.

The thrust of the plot boils down to these two men, though that doesn’t stop about a half-dozen other characters from tagging along. Connor runs with the likes of his pregnant wife (Bryce Dallas Howard) and token black friend (Common), while Marcus runs into an empowered and then impulsive pilot (Moon Bloodgood) and Connor’s eventual father, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), who quite inexplicably has a little black girl in tow. (Actually, the brief confrontation that finally comes between this silent kid and Bale’s screaming soldier feels like an inadvertent reward all its own.)

Director McG (We Are Marshall) has cited “The Road” and Children of Men as influences on his post-apocalyptic vision, and while he nails the harsh sun and constant dust (kudos to cinematographers Michael Fitzgerald and Shane Hurlbut), his scope is often too close and too loud to pass for epic-epic. One tracking shot early on is disorienting to a fault; another one in the film’s second half falls closer (if still short) to Children’s critical balance of technical prowess and character stakes. His efforts to ground his action compared to the glossy aesthetic of the Charlie’s Angels films would work even better if his characters weren’t so often impervious to the many, many combustions about them. One character survives two helicopter crashes and willingly plummets down from another to the stormy sea below; a second character launches themselves at an aircraft with an axe; and a third character dodges an exploding vehicle shortly after surviving a close-quarters encounter with a rocket-propelled grenade – and only one of them is even (and just) part machine, yet none seem to suffer a scratch.

Worse yet than the wavering immediate peril of our protagonists against tireless technology is the overriding failure of screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris (of the tolerable Terminator 3 and the terrible Catwoman; in fairness, rumored rewrites may have made the final product worse for wear) to inject the pre-destined events with any considerable dose of suspense, which in turn negates the very purpose of the film even existing beyond boffo box-office. The dilemma of Marcus’ resurrection – which I won’t reveal, despite a series of trailers that are more than happy to and a first act that tips its hand with increasing blatancy – ought to be fine food for thought, but the character approaches existential matters with aggravatingly redundant dialogue along the lines of “Don’t you believe that people deserve a second chance?” and “Noooooooooooo!,” while the actor struggles to meet the lackluster lines and American accent halfway. The emoting that he brings to what is essentially an arc condensed from that of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first two films is even flatter when compared to the Austrian’s relentless drive and deadpan charms. Going down the roster, from Worthington to Bale to Yelchin, not one human here matches the rooting interest of Schwarzenegger as either hero or villain. It’s a Terminator that’s missing its Terminator, and a last-minute digitally-enhanced appearance serves more as sobering reminder than fan service (which reminds me: just about every line rehashed from earlier entries is a cringe-inducing how’d-they-know-to-say-that exercise in checklisting, every bit as monotonous as Danny Elfman’s exceedingly generic score).

'Terminator Salvation' feels like an 'Animatrix'-level counterpart at best, intended to complement the existing mythos and insufficient at expanding it. All that’s really left to do is for Skynet to be conquered and Reese to be sent back – after that, maybe, could an original and thrilling story be told. Until then, this remains a half-hearted cash-grab at salvaging a franchise, and even when stripped of its legacy, it remains a summer-suitable paradox: full of noise, but with nothing to say.

link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=18111&reviewer=409
originally posted: 05/22/09 07:58:15
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