Terminator Salvation: Review

The war between humans and machine have been raging now since 1984, when the first Terminator film, a low budget sci-fi from unknown James Cameron became a cult classic. Nearly 25 years later the fourth installment of the series has arrived and while it has plenty of great special effects, it lacks something. In fact a lot of things.

The date 2018, and the resistance is fighting against SkyNet and their almost unstoppable machines. John Connor is predicting what is happening and he has one sole mission: to save his father, Kyle Reece. Meanwhile, ex-con Marcus has found Reece and is out to protect him, but he has a secret even he doesn't know about.

Let's get the positives out of the way. This is a surprisingly assured piece from the pretentiously named director McG. More famous for giving us the truly awful Charlie's Angels movies, the visuals are stunning and the texture of the film works, a grainy look to the sun-drenched, sandy, post Nuclear backdrop. The effects are very competent too, especially the introduction of the new Terminators, a giant man-munching one that spawns motorbike miniatures. The action sequences are also well executed and well handled, but a movie cannot live on action scenes alone.

The film lacks heart, humour and above all, characters that you care for. Christian Bale, who famously lost his rag during the making of the movie, does nothing more than snarl and shout, but we never see anything else. Even the scenes with his pregnant girlfriend, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, lacks any real emotion. You don't feel anything is actually between them. Sam Worthington as Marcus, at least seems to have some form of soul, but only in one or two scenes. The rest of the time he wanders around looking mean and moody. You genuinely feel nothing for the characters and so when bad things happen to them, you shrug your shoulders, thinking 'So What?'.

The one thing that The Terminator and Terminator 2 had was its tongue slightly in its cheek. This, however, has the tongue ripped out of the mouth and left lying on the floor, being trampled on by vast robotic creatures. I am sure that fan boys of the series, sci-fi geeks and teenage boys will love the loud explosions or working out the exact timeline in comparison to the previous films, but unfortunately, I was left slightly cold, and a little bored.