Terminator Salvation Review
Christian Bale Stars in Fourth Installment of the Unkillable Franchise
May 21, 2009
It's a sequel, but (save a CGI cameo) no one from the previous three movies appears in the film. It's not a reboot, but it takes place in a world that is totally unfamiliar from the previous movies. The world is even unfamiliar to protagonist John Connor, who halfway through states "This is not the future my mother warned me about."
So it's not surprising that, while an enjoyable-enough action movie, Terminator Salvation feels half-baked and disjointed. There are several little threads that tie back to all the previous movies, but these references feel tacked on, just to remind viewers that this is a Terminator movie. And it is definitely impossible to forget that this is a Terminator movie. New and supersized terminator models are seen throughout the movie, but despite the obvious lethality of the hordes of new killing machines, none of them radiate the menace that single terminators Arnold Schwarzenegger or Robert Patrick showed in the first two movies.
Surely, some of this can be attributed to the lack of flesh and facial features - there's only so much menace glowing red eyes can convey. But the reason the previous terminators felt more dangerous was because there seemed to be a lot more at stake for humanity should the terminators complete their missions. The main problem with Terminator Salvation is that the world that Sarah and John Connor were trying to prevent has come to be. The Terminator films love employing the line "No fate but what we make," but clearly that is not the case. Despite the Connors' best efforts in every Terminator movie, mankind still created a computer system that became self aware and turned on its masters. Judgment Day happened. And John Connor is fighting in the resistance, though not leading it.
Characters: John Connor (Christian Bale) and Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington)
In many ways, Connor's position in the resistance is exactly the same Keanu Reeves' Neo in the Matrix movies: To some, he's the mythical savior in the war against the machines. To others, he's simply a crackpot false-prophet. Though he is supposedly the main character, he's also one of the least interesting characters in the film. Christian Bale broods and snarls his way through the film, providing the least interesting John Connor yet. It's a shame to waste someone of Bale's talent on this role, and it's clear that John Connor was only supporting character in the original version of this script.
The real leading man of the film is Marcus Wright. At least, he's the one given any sort of character arc. Sam Worthington plays a remorseful, yet-still-dangerous death row inmate who, prior to being executed in 2003, signs his body over to Helena Bonham Carter's Dr. Kogan, who wants to use him for cancer research. His appearance in the year 2018 would be curious if not for the fact that the Dr. Kogan worked for Cyberdyne, the company that created the Skynet that begins the war against humans. Still, Worthington provides enough depth and heart to the character that the film as at least one emotional linchpin.
Terminator Prognosis
The real problem with every Terminator sequel is that each subsequent film devalues the actions of the previous film. The Connors seem to win, then we find out that each victory is only a temporary respite. And now knowing this, Terminator Salvation provides almost no sense of urgency or suspense. We know that John Connor will live to fight another day. And we know that he will indeed be fighting another day. While the first two Terminator films ended in ways that left the future in doubt, they didn't really need sequels. Salvation ends with more concrete knowledge of the future than any of the previous films, and clearly has more story to tell, but that story seems less and less interesting as the world of John Connor goes on. While Terminator Salvation is not a terrible movie, the creators of should just let this franchise die.
