Casual Cogitations

As titles of apocalyptic blockbusters go, Terminator Salvation has just the right touch of post-traumatic (and post-grammatical) doomsday cachet. It certainly sounds classier than T4: Attack of the Robots, which would have been more accurate. Even without Arnie, the latest entry into the Terminator saga is a gritty and exciting rollercoaster ride that is about as good as mindless escapist fare gets. An improvement on T3, the film manages to honor what came before without simply replicating it. As with any Hollywood blockbuster the script has some laughably bad moments (like attempts at romantic subplots are laughable and painful to watch. The final act is quite contrived and an unnecessary cameo jars with the tone of the rest of the film) but overall it’s just plain fun.

The fourth film in the series picks up a few years after T3 with a post apocalyptic world ruled by robots intent on removing the human race from the face of the earth. The remaining survivors have banded together to form a resistance of sorts guided by the one and only John Connor - Christian Bale doing his Batman voice again. This time around it seems that the robots are much smarter than Sarah Connor ever predicted and the end of humanity may be closer than expected.

Rather than simply play like a greatest hits of Terminator moments, the film tries to mark new ground for the series. Director McG has created a dark and intense movie that does not let up. The action is nonstop and the majority of the set pieces are worthy of the Terminator legacy.

Much of the problem lies within the film's screenplay: the story simply feels unfocused, as if the screenwriters weren't able to decide whether they wanted to continue following the John Connor plotline that's been the focus of the series from the onset, or branch out to follow Marcus Wright on his self-loathing mission of cybernetic vengeance. Ambition is a key component of any successful genre film, but in order to yield something truly great that ambition has to be focused. Here, the scriptwriters and director McG seem all too eager to gloss over any of the really interesting concepts in favor of having Connor do battle with Terminator sea monsters, or having Wright engage in a Road Warrior-style showdown with Terminator motorcycles.

Forget exploring the complex emotions a human would feel after discovering that he's been turned into a machine; a few lines of dialogue will suffice and give us a chance to get to the (yawn) final factory battle more quickly. It feels like a cop-out because it is. We've seen this all before, and done much better.

Yes, Terminator Salvation is an action film, but the action had better be pretty exhilarating if you're going to favor thrills over plot, and with the exception of one breathtaking sequence in a helicopter, the action in Terminator Salvation is astonishingly dull. In Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, McG went so wild with action and special effects that he essentially created a live-action cartoon. Perhaps a little dose of that outrageous energy may have gone a long way in keeping the Terminator series feeling fresh and exciting; instead, it feels like he has purposefully reigned in that penchant for hyper-stylized violence in an attempt to be taken more seriously, and the result is action scenes that are filled with movement, yet devoid of excitement.

Granted. It's got great action. Terrific special effects. Pulse-pounding pacing.

But it's a case of diminishing returns. “Salvation” so keeps its characters at arm's length that after a while it really doesn't matter what happens to them.

Anyway, most of the running time is occupied by action sequences, chase sequences, motorcycle sequences, plow-truck sequences, helicopter sequences, fighter-plane sequences, towering android sequences and fistfights. It gives you all the pleasure of a video game without the bother of having to play it.