Red Dawn meets Total Annihilation
The fourth installment of the Terminator franchise leads us into the heart of the battle between the humans and Skynet. It is early in the war and John Connor is commander of a small group of resistance fighters trying to outwit and destroy the terribly ruthless machines following Judgment Day. Christian Bale, fresh from his nefarious success as the Dark Knight, only shifts gears slightly portraying the battle-hardened Prophet of the Resistance, John Connor. In a direct nod to Batman, he fast lines into a deep pit of unknown chaos to retrieve vital information for the resistance – but he awakens something within that pit.
A new player in the Terminator universe is born, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a man condemned to die in 2003 who has signed his body over to science, only to wake up in 2018 in a veritable hell. He has no idea of the new future, the present now, that humanity has wrought upon itself. In an Odysseyian manner he comes into contact with humans and machines who each help fill in pieces of the puzzle of his new existence.
The action is intense and fast, you have to keep your eyes open at all times, and I really like what Director McG did with the combat sequences shot in first-person perspective, less thrilled with the uber-cheesy (and overused) fades to black. I actually heard people say, commercial break, so that effect doesn’t translate well to the big leagues. The special effects were on par with past Terminator films, and some big bad ass new toys unleashed by Skynet enter the scene – in some pretty tense shots.
Anton Yelchin is probably really popular at parties right now, portraying two legendary characters of greater geekdom with this year’s earlier effort as Chekov in the simply amazing Star Trek and now as the scrappy survivor, Kyle Reese in Salvation. He and newcomer Jadagrace as the mute, Star have a solid chemistry on screen and are efficient resistance fighters in the making. Bryce Dallas Howard plays John’s wife, Kate Connor well enough, but the newest femme fatale of the Terminator universe is the stunningly beautiful Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams, she pulls the audience into the humanity of the struggle with fierce determination and gritty grace.
This was a very good film, but it is in some stiff competition this year, I needn’t name the obvious contenders. Salvation will keep you entertained with dramatic action sequences, fun little nods to the franchise with certain lines delivered just for the fans and some nice little musical reminders of past films. Salvation reminds us all, when humanity itself is at stake, trusting your heart is sometimes all you’ve got left. The violence may have been toned down and there are no flashes of nudity and swearing is almost nil, but the story and the action do not suffer for the PG-13 rating causing so much ire amongst die-hard Terminator fans.
For me, I remember seeing T2 with a bunch of my friends, and it was an event, it wasn’t just a movie – the special effects were groundbreaking, trendsetting and although some of the acting in the first two movies wasn’t tremendous, the story and the characters managed to make up for that deficiency. T4, if you will permit me, doesn’t break any molds in the industry, and you won’t need a beer after the film to digest everything you witnessed, but it will keep your attention from start to finish.
Wonderful insight
Finally saw this one on Blu-Ray. I must say, although it's not a bad film, it was definitely the least of the Terminator films. I found the performances uneven, including Christian Bale's ("WE'RE DEAD! WE ARE ALL DEAD!!!"-cut to H-Man laughing his ass off), and the script even more so. The writing at times was downright putrid, and they even screwed up Sarah Conner's recorded dialogue from the first film… talk about an easy thing to get right! I also felt that in the first two films the characters and story had real depth. I cared about the people and the impending future was actually quite scary. The glimpses we got of the post-Judgment Day world were truly nightmarish in T1 + 2, but as visualized by McG (buddy, if you ever want to be taken seriously as a filmmaker, drop the McG crap and use your real name) the war torn future just looks like another Mad Max wasteland. As for the characterizations, they were strong in the first two, as said, but that eroded a little in T3, and now in TS they're gone completely. John Conner been stripped of all his personality, as has Kate, his wife. At least her character was a character in T3. Marcus Wright, the Terminator/human hybrid, was a non-entity. The only one with a pulse was Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin's performance is the best in the movie), but he didn't have enough screen time to really make a huge impression. The scene where he and Conner come face to face finally should have powerful, but it wasn't. I also agree with "King of the World" Jim Cameron when he said that they went over board with wink wink nods to the previous films (Gun n' Roses, really?). The action scenes were well done, but nowhere near as memorable as anything in the first two films. Overall, though, not a bad movie. I didn't hate it like Harry Knowles at AICN did. It was a perfectly good action film, but as a Terminator film, it didn't quite stack up. And, I saved this for last, despite "Arnold's cameo," his presence (and Cameron's) is sorely missed.
Yea, Yelchin had a GREAT 2009 though, sucker was everywhere. It wasn't the best T movie, that would be the original to me, I am a purist I guess.
One thing I forgot to mention earlier, Danny Elfman truly butchered the brilliant "Terminator" theme in this. By far the worst rendition of it ever.