Terminator Salvation

Directed by McG

Written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris

Starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, and Anton Yelchin



Terminator fans have long been waiting for this moment, to finally experience the future between man and machines. The whole series has been leading up to this. John Connor (Christian Bale) is the prodigal leader of the Revolution, the beacon of hope of humanity whose population has been cut by half and now living as scavengers in a post-nuclear holocaust world. It fulfills what it set out to do, but fans will leave theaters wishing there was more to it. Fear not, there are still two more sequels to be made.
Overall the acting is decent, but at parts a little rocky. Anton Yelchin, who plays the young Kyle Reese (John's father who knocked up Sarah Connor from the first one, but I won't get into the whole backstory. If you don't know then watch the first film) does an outstanding job portraying the character that Michael Biehn played in 1984. Props to whoever casted him.
The action sequences are everything a Terminator fan would want; big, intense, and explosions. The CGI helps to enhance these heart pounding moments.
But while watching the film I felt as though something was missing. Sure its continuing the story, its fun to watch, but it just didn't feel like a Terminator movie. What made the first two movies so thrilling was that they played off the fear of being chased after something that cannot be stopped, that won't stop until you are dead. In Salvation they are killing these robots left and right, there is nothing scary about them. And the (somewhat) absence of Arnold doesn't feel the same. Like it or not he's what made the movies so great, it wouldn't be Terminator without him. Sure, you make the argument that its a new story that takes the series in a differant direction, but its still not going to fill that empty whole inside of every Terminator fan.
But enough of my purist talk, Salvation is a good movie. It still doesn't topple T2: Judgement Day as the best in the series (and one of the best sequels of all time) but it is a awesome look into the future and revives the series (that seems to be happening a lot this summer).

3 1/2 out of 5 stars