I’ve always loved the Terminator series. James Cameron’s iconic first two films are two of my favorite movies of all time. T3 Rise of the Machines, was no where near the greatness of the originals, but for every thing it did wrong it managed to do something right, and the movie overall was pretty good. Which brings us to Terminator Salvation, the latest sequel to feature another director’s take on Cameron’s universe, which brings us to the forefront of the future war between John Connor and humanity vs. the ruthless Skynet. 

Salvation, directed by McG, tells the story of the future human resistance fighting for survival against the all powerful Skynet. This is a battle that Terminator fans have dreamt of ever since the future glimpses from the first two films.   A battle torn earth being ravaged by Terminator robots in all of their metal exo-skeleton glory.  To say that there is a lot of substance involved in the treatment of this portion of the story is an understatement, however Salvation has no such substance at all.  The plot is disjointed and feels almost like a bunch of trailers sewn together than one complete movie.

There isn’t much story so I won’t get into that at all, instead we’ll examine the major players. Christian Bale as John Connor is decent at best. I am a big fan of Bale’s work, but he really seems to have phoned in this performance. I understand he is supposed to be the battle hardened bad ass version of Connor, but he does little except yell and snarl his lines. I admit the previous incarnations of Connor were a bit whiny and annoying, but they were also very human and gave decent insight in to why Connor is the way he is and how he eventually morphs into the great leader he is destined to be. It is as if Bale just did his own take on the character, reducing him to someone who barks every line spoken and it’s a mystery as to why anyone would want to follow him in the first place.

Then there is Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, the man Connor sends back in time to father…Connor. I think this kid is going to blow up in all kinds of movies in the near future. While I was convinced that no one could rival Michael Biehn’s portrayal of Reese from the first Terminator, Yelchin does a decent job.  Most will recognize him as Chekov, from the newly revamped Star Trek, yet none of the goofiness of his other portrayal makes its way into this film. This Kyle Reese is all business. He does a good job of portraying Reese as a teenager and he shows the audience exactly how he becomes the the Kyle Reese we are introduced to in 1984.  Its a shame that Bale didn’t take a similar approach to his portrayal of Connor.

This brings us to the wild card of the cast, Marcus Wright played by Sam Worthington. Worthington is decent as the troubled Marcus, the only noticeable thing is his Australian accent creeping out every other line. I think they should have just let him run with the accent, after all it worked for Arnold in previous films.  Anyways, Worthington is decent, but his character is a bit awful. For those of you who don’t know  SPOILER ALERT ……….Marcus was a death row inmate who donated his body to science, only to wake up unknowingly transformed into a Terminator. Thats right. Marcus is a “human” terminator that can feel emotions, make decisions, but still has that cool metal skeleton and all of the other perks that come with being a Terminator.  This would actually be one of the decent plot devices the film has, if it weren’t so highly publicized repeatedly in the trailers. Then again the film doesn’t do a good job of disguising this fact. Marcus wakes up naked in a lightning storm looking for clothes. Insert “you might be a terminator” comment here.

Finally, we have McG’s directing. Technically, his directing is pretty good. He manages to maintain good shots that capture the action so there isn’t that disorienting feeling of wondering who is getting hit and whats going on.  As far as emotionally, he doesn’t really seem to get too much out of his actors’ performances. Either that or everyone on this production is on the exact same page in their visualization of the Terminator universe, which would be a shame. The effects and new Terminators in this movie are all pretty cool, but to be honest most of it seems like a scaled down version of Transformers. While a lot of the action looks pretty good, it is nothing we haven’t seen done better in other movies before and definitely not solid enough to salvage the entire film.

Perhaps the biggest thing about this movie is how meaningless it is ultimately. Nothing happens in the end and nothing is resolved, other than the ball being dropped. There is a scene in which Skynet captures Kyle Reese. Rather than just killing him and effectively preventing the birth of John Connor, they simply hold him to use as bait. This is obviously a huge fumbled opportunity and it captures the essence of the entire film perfectly.

There is so much potential, or was so much, in the future story of John Connor and the resistance, yet this film managed to obliterate any desire to see what happens. Its obvious that they are trying to milk this into becoming perhaps a new trilogy, as evidenced by the lack of any resolution in this first film. But it also becomes clear that trying to strecth out what they currently have is like watering down water.  Usually I would tell people to just check it out on their own, but I can’t honestly recommend this film in theaters. I would tell even the most die hard fans to wait for DVD. If this movie is any indication on the future of the franchise, consider it terminated…hehe.