I’ve never been a big fan of the “Terminator” franchise, but I figured in the interest of wrapping up the entire experience, I’d better check “Terminator Salvation” off the list. Despite the fact that the flaky Christian Bale was the main character, I tried to keep an open mind and embrace the special effects.
With McG involved as director, I knew the flick would be visually stunning, but there would be little behind the CGI. And true to form, “Terminator Salvation” had a balky plot, bad dialogue (“I’ll be back”? Seriously?) and robotic acting (get it?), to go with the amazing CGI recreation of Arnold, the incredible underwater Terminators and the pretty-neat tie-ins to the first film. With a budget of $200 million (the most ever for an independent production), the bangs had to be worth the bucks to somebody. And they definitely pushed the envelope, as Bale broke his hand (in addition to verbally accosting the director of photography) and Sam Worthington (Marcus Wright) tore back muscles during the filming.
For whatever reason, “Terminator” movies have always featured an oddly placed, gratuitous-nudity moment, and sure enough, McG comes through. After being rescued by the lead character (I’m guessing here, the film never really makes this clear) Wright, a pilot played by the ultra-hot and subtly-uniquely-named Moon Bloodgood randomly goes topless in a rainstorm in the middle of a dump. Very strange, but I doubt many red-blooded males started a letter-writing campaign to protest.
Anyway, Wright plays a sentenced-to-death criminal in 2018, and he makes a deal with the devil to give his body to science. Little does he know that the cancer-ridden scientist (Helena Bonham Carter) will help to turn him into a part-human, part-Terminator machine programmed to kill John Connor. Apparently, after the machines became self-aware, recognized that humans are their own worst enemy and took matters into their hands by attacking their creators (“Judgment Day”), Connor has been leading the Resistance against them (SkyNet), and has been for several movies. Hell, this franchise makes the “Matrix” look simple and to the point.
There is certainly an intensity to this flick, especially as the Resistance learns that they may be able to “turn off” the machines with a special signal and “reset the future.” Thrown into the fire with little idea of context, Wright hooks up with a couple of kids (including one who looks like Michael Jackson’s child clone, complete with Afro) who are living a “Mad Max” existence in trying to avoid detection by the machines. As Wright (who seems to scream a lot, which is weird) is dragged into the mix in the battle for Kyle Reese, we are never quite sure what side he is on, but lots of explosions ensue and stuff.
The beautiful Bryce Dallas Howard apparently plays Connor’s wife (although this also isn’t clear) and is a doctor, and the pilot also falls in love with Wright, making for some rather convenient love connections. As they do battle with SkyNet, which is harvesting the surviving humans as slaves, Wright essentially discovers his true identity as an “infiltration prototype,” and it’s hard to miss the not-so-subtle metaphor of him being a Terminator with a heart—literally. You can probably figure out the rest yourself, although there are some cool reveals on the road to “salvation.”
As noted, the grandstanding speeches by Connor (“There is no fate but what we make”) and the brutally cheesy lines (“I saw a man, not a machine”) took away from the movie, as did the force-fed Guns ‘N’ Roses soundtrack, which was a nod to the original “Terminator.” I thought it was funny that the Terminators sync like iPhones, but positioning a movie like this as a forum to make us think about second chances and what makes us human is asking WAY too much. But if you like strong CGI, fiery crashes and the like, this is a manageable 115 minutes and is worth seeing.
And with a “storm on the horizon” reference at the end (as well as the tagline of “The End Begins”), they set the stage for yet another possible sequel … cue the “Space Balls” crack about “Rocky Five … Thousand!”
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