If you were a fan of action movies during the '80s, then there was no way you could avoid Arnold Schwarzenegger. Though he got his first real taste of fame with Pumping Iron, a documentary about his competition with Lou Ferrigno as they prepared for the 1975 Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition, his big break in Hollywood came in 1982 with Conan the Barbarian. The movie was a hit, and Schwarzenegger was on the fast track to superstardom. He's done some of the biggest action flicks of all time, but arguably his most famous character originated in James Cameron's 1984 sci-fi classic The Terminator. The movie's success would spawn comic books, video games, action figures, a short-lived television show, and most notably, a batch of sequels.Schwarzenegger returned for Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991 and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003, but thanks to his job as the Governor of California, the eventual fourth movie in the franchise was forced to move on without him. With no Schwarzenegger to carry it as usual, Terminator Salvation hit theaters last summer, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the original movie. But would the movie be able to hold a candle to its predecessors?
The year is 2018. The nuclear holocaust known as "Judgment Day" has come and gone, and Skynet's genocidal war against the human Resistance rages onward. Among the soldiers of the Resistance is John Connor (Christian Bale), who is slowly on the path to becoming the great leader he was told he would be. During an attack on a Skynet base, John discovers that his enemies have been using human prisoners to develop a new type of Terminator made of living tissue. He realizes that Skynet is moving ever closer to the creation of the T-800 series, a full decade earlier than John had anticipated.
But he'll have to put that on the back burner, as there are more pressing matters at hand. Resistance forces have found a radio frequency that could be exploited and used to shut down Skynet permanently. In the process, they've also intercepted a list of humans that Skynet plans to eliminate within the week. At the tippy-top of the list are John, obviously, and a civilian named Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). While the Resistance higher-ups are unaware of Kyle's importance, John issues a series of radio broadcasts hoping to locate and protect the teenager who will one day travel back in time and become John's father.
Meanwhile, death row inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) has found himself in a world he does not recognize. Although he was supposedly executed in 2003 and had his body donated to scientific research, he has awoken with no memory of the previous fifteen years. The disoriented Marcus soon crosses paths with Kyle and his mute child sidekick Star (Jadagrace Berry), choosing to travel with them after they overhear one of John's radio messages. But they are quickly separated when Kyle and Star are taken prisoner during a Skynet attack.
Marcus encounters downed pilot Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) soon afterwards, and she escorts him back to John's base. Things get a little hairy, though, when he's injured by a magnetic landmine. When the base's medics try treating his wounds, they find that he's a unique amalgamation of human organs and robotic technology. John believes that Marcus is an infiltration unit sent to kill him, but is taken aback by Marcus's claims that all he wants to do is rescue Kyle and Star. Against his instincts, John must work with Marcus in order to make sure that Skynet is defeated.
I must admit that I approached Terminator Salvation with a bit of trepidation. I love the first two movies in the series, but Rise of the Machines was so thoroughly mediocre that it hurt my faith in any sequels that followed it. There was also the fact that it was directed by McG, whose prior directorial efforts didn't exactly paint him as the kind of person who would be a right choice for this franchise. But I was willing to give Terminator Salvation a shot, especially since I was left in need of some kind of Terminator fix after Fox cancelled The Sarah Connor Chronicles a mere six weeks before the movie's theatrical release. And you know what? It wasn't a bad movie at all.
Like I said, McG is at the helm here. I was a bit surprised when he was hired, because his entire prior body of work as a feature film director consists of only Charlie's Angels, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, and We Are Marshall. Would you expect a guy who'd directed the Charlie's Angels movies to make a serious sci-fi/action movie about a human/robot war? But the truth is that he actually did a decent enough job. While there is no hiding that McG is a thoroughly mediocre director, his work here is perfectly acceptable. You get the feeling that he was trying to make the movie bigger than it really was, and in some instances, it shows. The action scenes are exciting and visually stellar, especially the sequence that begins with the giant Terminator attacking the 7-Eleven. (That's cooler than it sounds, trust me.) McG knows what kind of movie he wanted to make, and for the most part, I think he succeeded.
Unfortunately, I can't say the script was as good. Credited to Terminator 3 writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris, the script feels like they wrote two different movies and mashed them together. The two storylines — John's war against the machines and Marcus's search for redemption — never really gel together. It's as if Brancato and Ferris couldn't decide who the primary protagonist would be. It's really jarring to see one of the characters disappear for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. Both stories would have been compelling enough had the movie been solely about one or the other. But with the focus being shared, it makes both of them weaker for it.
At least the cast tried their hardest. Though his work here was overshadowed by his profanity-laced tirade at the movie's director of photography, Christian Bale is very good as John Connor. The character is the linchpin for the entire franchise, and though Bale is almost too intense for his own good at times, he's still great in the role. He's just what the character needed.
Sam Worthington plays the movie's other lead character, and he's okay, I guess. He's not terrible, but he's nothing to write home about. Worthington does carry a certain air of mystery about him that the character needed, but when it's all said and done, Worthington is just okay at best.And on a side note, I can't help but wonder how long Hollywood will keep trying to make Worthington a star. He's had this, Avatar, and the Clash of the Titans remake, and in all three, his performances have never reached above "average." He's not the most talented or charismatic actor out there, so why must this great experiment continue?
Rounding out the important players is Anton Yelchin, playing the role that Michael Biehn did so well in 1984. This was the second time in 2009 that Yelchin played a character someone else made famous, having previously taken over the role of Chekov in J.J. Abrams's Star Trek reboot. Yelchin was great in Star Trek, and he's great in Terminator Salvation too. His performance echoes Biehn's in a lot of ways, yet plays Reese as more vulnerable and inexperienced. That makes sense, considering where the movie falls in the franchise's timeline. Reese naturally wouldn't be the soldier he was in the original movie. But Yelchin puts the character on the path to who he'll become, and I appreciated his efforts.
Of the four movies in the Terminator saga, Terminator Salvation is most certainly not the best of them. It isn't the worst, either, so at least it has that going for it. While I definitely missed the presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger (CGI-created cameo notwithstanding), I felt it was a fine entry into the series. It's certainly a brave one, in any event. So on that usual scale of mine, Terminator Salvation gets three and a half stars out of five. And here's hoping that the franchise will eventually be back.
Final Rating: ***½
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