Rating:
3 out of 5
Short version: Terminator Salvation is great for the don’t-expect-much-except-action-out-of-a-summer-movie crowd, not so great if you’re looking for a worthy successor to the first two films.
Screen Rant reviews Terminator Salvation
For the record, I am not a McG hater, nor am I holding Christian Bale’s set meltdown against him. I realize that McG will be forever haunted by the fact he directed Charlies Angels – but I had really high hopes for Terminator Salvation… I wanted it to be great.
Unfortunately, it isn’t.
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Why did I think that this long awaited addition to the Terminator movie franchise had even a snowball’s chance of being awesome? Because I had the sense that McG wanted to prove he could do it. While many people think that his film We Are Marshall isn’t all that great, I really enjoyed it and it demonstrated to me that he could actually do a film with characters you could care about.
But sadly, that’s exactly what’s missing from Terminator Salvation.
The film opens in 2003 with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) in a prison cell on death row, hours before his execution. He’s visited by a scientist who has cancer (Helena Bonham Carter) and wants him to donate his body to science. She seems desperate to get him to sign, and he’s not very cordial to her despite her situation and his.
The first problems in the film surface right at the start – why is she so desperate for him in particular to donate his body? Don’t scores of people have organ donation cards in their wallets? And then there’s his mysterious background – he’s responsible for the death of his brother and two police officers… neither of these is ever explained in the film (nor in the prequel novel for that matter, which I did read).
From there the film jumps to some serious actiony goodness in 2018. I won’t give anything away other than to say we get to see Christian Bale as John Connor almost immediately and he’s involved on a mission that does not end up going very well. At all. Very satisfying first look at the future including some fantastic action and cool visuals/camera angles.
The upshot is that the resistance (not led at this point by Connor) has found a way to defeat Skynet. Connor volunteers to test it on a small scale before the big move against Skynet central. However that plot line becomes secondary to the story of Marcus Wright and his involvement with a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin). For the non-fans out there, Reese is the man who was sent back in time to save Sarah Connor and is the father of John Connor. At the point this film takes place that hasn’t happened yet (does your head hurt yet?).
Marcus doesn’t seem to have aged at all although 15 years have passed, and there is a mystery surrounding him. He runs into Kyle and the young girl he’s taken under his protection and very grudgingly goes along with them since he doesn’t really know what’s going on – and Reese did keep him from being killed by a T-600 (that’s the bigger and bulkier predecessor to the T-800, aka the Schwarzenegger Terminator).
The film eventually brings together Wright and Connor via resistance pilot Blair (Moon Bloodgood). There’s an issue of trust and conflict between the two that becomes the major issue in the film.
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148 Comments
Andy the facts say nothing. Regardless of wheather T4 is good or bad how much a movie makes in the theater is meaningless to it’s quality. Great movies sometimes make small amounts and horrible films some times cross the 250mil mark. Don’t judge a movie by it’s box office. I disagree with some of the critics, but their still a better way to judge than the box office.
I was hoping to see more of the awesome future sequence glimpsed at the beginning of The Terminator and Terminator 2 (I like that the review mentions those images of the adult Connor on the battlefield in T2 – he looked like someone in command and someone you’d take orders from. Bale is miscast, definitely).
And another thing: I really can’t believe all these comments from people saying the first Terminator movie was poor quality or some other crazy crap. Must be from people who weren’t teenagers or young adults in the 1980s, otherwise you would not be saying those things.
You think T4 will be remembered and respected and loved in 25 years’ time? Pffft.
I don’t think that Bale was miscast. The script did not allow anybody to add anything to there characters.
finally saw it tonight. i have mixed feelings. not sure whether I like it or not. i usually need some time to make a decision but i think what im trying to say is that it just didn’t feel right. the action in the beginning was phat and some other scenes were decent. acting was nothing special and the script was bland. Can’t say McG did anything to make me hate it but he didn’t take me for a ride. it was just there – nothing special.
now i can read all these comments. this is going to take a while.
oh i forgot. there was like 10 people in the theatre tops. i know im going late but wow – i was shocked but i understand why it could get bad word of mouth.
Christian Bale is good but that new guy, Same Worthington, was great… in fact he pretty much stole the show
This is how I imagined the future battles to look like:
http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/8813/t3robots.jpg
(From T3)
I still remember in that short scene in the beginning of T2 where the older John Connor walks through like a command center of the resistance, people would step aside and stand at attention from the sight of him like that scene in the new Star Trek when the captain of the USS Kelvin was walking toward the shuttle bay. In T4, people treated him like he was “one of the guys” albeit like a very much liked “one of the guys” but it didn’t seem like people had that “fearful respect” you would expect people to have of a superior officer.
The reason for that is he isn’t in command yet. He’s in command in 2029, TS takes place in 2018.
All in all, i really liked this movie. I thought it went with the other 3 movies great. I loved the Arnold cameo. During that part i felt like standing up and clapping. I also liked how they showed how John gets that scar on his face.
I also liked the fact that they included “I’ll be back”, “come with me if you want to live”, and the truck chase scene. Those 3 things appear in every Terminator movie. (except T3 where it’s, “she’ll be back/I’m back” and “if you wanna live, come on”)
Terminator Salvation is not totally shite but it is one big, messy, sloppy wet fart.
Disappointing and not worth rating as I’ll never watch it again.
Give me T3 any day. At least it had characters and a sense of humour.
He wasn’t in command, but he was still a commanding officer to all of those people in that room when he walked in there. I’m sorry, but if you’re in the military try telling a Colonel why you didn’t stand in attention for him because he’s not the General, let me know how that goes…
I was severely disappointed by the lack of emotional over tones that humans would have to experience in the face of world annihilation.THE music was a let down ,Danny E. did not have the soul for this type of movie.The original music should of stayed and the emotional scenes should of been featured throughout but all we get was cold Robots and that is were it failed!!!
Scripted for action and not man versus Machine..
This is a slap in the face of what James Cameron did from T1 & 2 to Titanic.
The music was weak and so was the script…
I completely agree with this review! Very well written.
I mainly agree with the fact when the movie ends we really get no sense of closure on any aspect at all. When the movie ended I was also thinking “what was the point, what just happened?”
Many, many thing that were wrong with the film. The film felt like it was just thrown together by a bunch of different people and really had no continuity. The movie predominantly revolved around Sam Worthington’s character, Marcus Wright, a character that was well played but not needed for the film. The reason being that he stole the “thunder” from John Connor in this movie; and if we all know the terminator movies, this film should have been solely about John Connor. [SPOILER ALERT] What was the point of introducing Marcus Wright if they were just going to off him at the end of the movie. I mean at least keep him around for the sequels because he was a very big aspect of the movie and was pretty much where the future of man/machine was headed towards.
So what did the humans really accomplish in this movie? They took down one sector of skynet, fine. But they only infiltrated that sector because of Marcus, how are they going to entirely eliminate Skynet now that he is dead? (I am sure they will devise some scheme)
Anyway, getting towards other flaws, I also did not understand why they did not say anything about Kate Connors pregnancy. In T3 we are told that John’s/Kate’s children would also play their part in the resistance, so why was the pregnancy downplayed? Does not make sense
In addition, Bale clearly looked older than the John Connor we had in T3, but our Kate Connor looked younger in this movie than the actress in T3…makes no sense
Also, why was Kate Connor such and irrelevant aspect of the movie? (Prob cause Bryce Dallas Howard cannot act) She was such a vital role in the 3rd. It made no sense.
There are things that worked though, the imagery and the feel of the movie was very genuine and realistic. The director did a great job with that. The references made to previous movies were also great, especially the tapes of Sarah Connor. The action was also very heart pounding and thrilling and Sam Worthington did a solid job; wasn’t his fault they did not explain anything about his origin, like why it was his fault that his bros and 2 cops died.
How they can make the 5th better:
1-Recast the roles. DO NOT cast Bale as Connor. He is a great actor, but this is not the ro9le for him, also recast Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor because her acting is just miserable.
2-STick to Connor’s story because that is what we care about and that is what we are here to see. Bottom line.
3-All the previous Terminator movies has 1 main terminator chasing after Connor, bring that feel of “chase” back. I understand now that there are many machines but have the machines create and deploy a new terminator after Connor.
4-Another Arnold cameo, like in this 1 (although it actually wasn’t hymn), is needed.
5-Do NOT go down the Matrix Revolutions path…which is where the movie seems to be headed…that movie destroyed the Matrix franchise.
Overall I would rate this movie a 6-7/10 because there are many aspects that worked and I will likely watch this again on DVD
I personally loved the movie. Yes it did have 3 storylines to it, which was a little frustrating, but for the most part the acting was really good and the action was out of hand!! People are complaining that it should have had Arnold in it, but seriously if he was going to act the same way he did in T3 then I would preffer him not to be in it.The brief cameo he had well sort of….was pretty cool!…I already saw it twice and both times everybody in the theater cheered and clapped in the end. T1 and T2 were definitely the best ones hands down, T3 in my opinion was decent with a few awkward moments….but Terminator: Salvation had the best action sequences of the bunch!….Cant wait for the Blu Ray Disk to come out!!…PEACE!!!!!!!
Hi
I haven’t seen this movie and I won’t. Why? Well because I have never believed that C. Bale is any good as an actor compared to so many Hollywood heroes. It looks like because his Batman film did well people assume it’s because he is the depth required to pull it off alone purely on acting merits when needed.
Also, due to the Writers Guild strike in the US, the movies were not produced with proper scripts, and movie directors ended up making movies on the go making non-scripted scenes on the spot hoping for the best because they had no choice.
I know that any movie that relies too much on CGI (graphics) such as BATMAN and Terminator Salvation they have to make action the main focus of the film as this is the favourite flavour of the current audience generation.
Don’t waste your time and money watching wannabes
@Pachi
Yeah, this movie is a netflix rental, even though it is entertaining. But Worthington is really what this movie is about, not Bale. I also, respectfully, disagree about the Batman prequels; I thought they were very character driven and less CGI than the other Batman movies.
Spot on Review!!!! u nailed man, this movie was lacking that something.
I have to come forward and make an affirmation in saying that u need James Cameron to “Get it Right”, i find T2 several orders of magnitudes more interesting than this movie.
I have to stand behind u and agree that Bale, regardless he being one of the best actors around, was actually a miss-cast for this movie.
Am sorry but i thing they should had considered casting if not Michael Biehn (rejuvenated via sfx ala Ben Button) for the Kyle Reese character or at least someone who looked like him.
Also, there was no clear imminent and unstoppable menace throughout the whole movie, i mean, shit, they should had take out the ——– at the beginning of the movie.
I’ve been reading a bunch of reviews on this movie, just to see if other people’s opinions alligned with my own, and I’ve gotta say, you hit the nail on the head here. I was totally stoked for this movie when I first saw the preview, and even more so when I read an article about McG wanting to define his career with his movies. And then boom, 2 hours of me not caring what-so-ever about anybody on screen. A couple things to point out that weren’t listed:
-First scene of 2018: What happened? Apparently everybody just died, no explanation, no Skynet (Save for the one terminator that got killed by getting shot in the head…?), and confusion from the get go. Then Marcus is somehow walking around.
- Two, John Connor jumping into the ocean. That was the first real red flag of the movie. Two minutes of Christian Bale arguing with a helicopter pilot who’s telling him “HQ won’t surface, they don’t want to give away their position.” So he jumps in the ocean. And whadda ya know! Next scene,he’s on the submarine. So,HQ’s apparently willing to risk Connor’s life in field missions, but they concede to him wanting to get on board, effectively giving away their position.Right.
-Third, The whole movie we’re warned that Skynet terminators have infrared vision, so it’s suicide to travel at night. Why,then, in attempts to capture a loose terminator, did John Connor order dozens of men in jeeps and helicopters to light up that forest with a .50 cal and rockets just for the sake of capture. Apparently they’re not too worried about getting found.
-Lastly, (But by no means the only flaw in the movie, only one of the more prominent ones), I like how Skynet is able to outsmart humans, bring about a nuclear apocalypse, completely redefine life on earth, but it isn’t capable enough to make a Terminator that listens to it! Good job,robots, freewill should definately exceed any sort of protocols or inherent life-support systems put into the Coup-De-Grace of the plan to catch Connor.
In conclusion, McG really made me sad,and it sounds like he did for a lot of people.=( Please don’t see this movie.
It’s seems to be really hard to get a Balanced Review this days. Movies with big expectations all seem to develop a group of people who for nothing else but to slag that film off.
Finally I saw it last night and, even though, it’s certainly not breaking new grounds I found it perfectly enjoyable. MCG is no gifted director and added nothing to it, a better storyteller would have made a difference. MCG must have friends in high placed to be allowed to work on this after Charlies Angels crap. I would like to give it a 7/10 even though, for the long wait, they should have delivered at least a 9, so it’s not ground breaking like the first, it’s just a decent sequel. Final mention for the terrible terrible Trailer revealing the key plot! Editor should b sacked !
Just one addition to what James says above me about the submarine scene. Yeah that was utter bollocxs but I choose to quickly put it behind me. I can pass one minor flaw, if I am that unforgiving I will never enjoy any movie. As I said, fun but not great.
I could forgive Star Trek for its myriad plot holes – this just had too many significant ones to ignore.
Much as I like Bale, he didn’t do much for me in this, and in fact I thought Sam Worthington would have made a much more convincing John Connor. Yelchin was better than I expected – one scene towards the end in Skynet where he looked uncannily like a young Michael Biehn, too.
Danny Elfman’s score was terrible. That “Dah Dum Dum DAdum” theme (for want of a better way of putting it) should hit you between the eyes like a jackhammer; this version was like being slapped round the face with a wet gym sock. Sappy acoustic guitar pieces here and there as an attempt to reprise that part of Brad Fiedel’s T2 score, but where that worked in the T2 gas station scene as an emotional reinforcement to the juxtaposition of the images of the kids playing with guns and the Furlong/Arnie dialogue, this just sounded jarring and out of place. Hellboy II all over again.
Similarly, the many attempts to throw in little crumbs of T1/2 lines and imagery just seemed forced and unnatural. Ultimately as tiresome as the Star Wars prequels having to work in the “I have a bad feeling about this” line. Didn’t push my buttons anyway. With Aliens and T2, James Cameron showed probably better than any other director how to reprise little aspects in a sequel without it appearing formulaic. Linda Hamilton, for example, basically becoming a human terminator in T2, was one of the most original (and entirely logical) turnabouts for a character I’ve ever seen. Pink dress to black-clad assassin: beat that!
Did like the idea of the large carrier serving as a dropship for the HKs and the folded-up harvester, which in turn spat out the two mototerminators. I’d always imagined the inside of Skynet to be more…alien, though. Not just a T2 metal foundry – something utterly machinelike and inhospitable. There’s a scene in Colossus: The Forbin Project where the Colossus mainframe (basically Skynet in 1970) is activated in the massive hollowed-out interior of a mountain, and even that sends a shiver up the spine more than these Skynet interiors.
On the plus side, beautiful cinematography. The scene at the beginning with the truncated terminator crawling after Connor, and the helicopter crash, was the only one that even came close to recreating the sense of menace of T1/2.
Less than the sum of its not inconsiderable parts, sad to say. Better than T3 though. As Vic said, something of a soulless, heartless excercise.
Pretty much sums it all up Dentist. Well said, I’m glad I’m not the only one that thought the music sucked for the movie compared to the music from T2… The music from T1 was just amusing in its own corny way, stupid 80’s… lol
Don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but isn’t there THREE previous Terminators? You keep saying theres only two…
@Mr X
I think everyone is discounting the terrible T3.
3rd terminator may have lacked action but it was still a good movie…better than salvation i’d say. For 1 the John Connor they picked was a better choice than Bale and the movie actually took some time to segway from T2 and explain to us what had happened since then. I dont understand what was wrong with teh 3rd aside form lack of action…other than that I thought it did a GREAT job…Salvation was a fairly done too but with Salvation there were just too many flaws
@tasouli: T3 had a lack of action?! WHAT?! It had some of the coolest action sequences I had seen (up to that point) and many felt it probably had too much action.
Heath
T3 had action, but thats ALL it had,the story was rediculous……it contradicted the first two films and itself, the roles were miscast(especially who they got to play Connor), the “TX” was weaker than the T-1000.
What I mean when I say it conradicted itself and the first two films was that the theme of T1 and T2 was “The future is not set, there is no fate, but what we make for ourselves”, but T3 pissed on that and says the it is set and if so then sending a terminator back in time to kill Connor wouldn’t change anything.
IMHO, T3 didn’t have a lack of action, it had a lack of acting. I thought the guy they got to play John Connor was horrible; and I didn’t think much of the actress destined to be his wife. I felt the T-1000 was far better than the TX. And I enjoyed Salvation more than T3.
I wonder where my comment went where I said the music was awful! They should have gotten John Powell for this one.
@Matt Keith,,,
“The future is not set, there is no fate, but what we make for ourselves”,
I think Connor told Reese that to inspire Sarah, not as a template for the franchise to run on. T3, didn’t piss on that as the future Skynet still wants Connor dead because is sees Connor as a future threat. How the war starts is irrelivent and hardly ruined T3 for me. If anything I was impressed Mostow had the balls to start Judgement day at the end.
Did anyone expect Skynet to fade away after T2 ended. Come on evil finds a way.
@tasouli
I’ll also have to disagree, T3 didn’t lack action, in fact it was too much. The action was completely unbelievable, like the super extended pointless chase scene that was only inserted to take up time. T800’s “power pack” EXPLODING from any little damage (wouldn’t that be a huge vulnerability???) even though in T2 his power source was completely ruptured by the MASSIVELY SUPERIOR T1000 (over the TX13, I threw in the 13 to further the coolness…) yet it didn’t explode at all, and even going into the molten metal, that would have ruptured his secondary power source, and that didn’t explode either…
I admit, Bale was miscast as Connor in Salvataion, but come on, the guy they picked to play John Connor in T3 was the weakest, lamest, loser I’ve EVER seen, and he was supposed to save humanity?? In that case, WE’RE DOOMED! Not to mention the acting was just horrible…
Anyway, just had to ditto on what Katt Keith and John had to say…
Great rant. You hit it on the nose.
It’s sad. Some critics still can’t understand that T2 had a heart… although, different from The Terminator… it’s there. The Terminator and T2 are separate films. Things have changed so much in 10 years (Sarah Connor especially) that the sequel is gonna feel differently. And Sarah’s transformation in T2 is VERY logical. Linda gives one of the most dynamic performances as a female hero in film history if you ask me. She doesn’t shoot Dyson when she has the best, easiest shot in the world (through the scope of her sniper rifle)… so you should know, she’s gonna kill him when she has to face him. It’s a brilliiant piece of drama if you ask me. I mean, look at the look on her face. She has the weight of the world on her shoulders, but her conscience is winning out in that one moment.
T2 and Aliens are brilliant continuations of the original films… especially in the character development department.
But, T3, Alien 3, Terminator Salvation… the filmmakers behind these crap films just don’t understand what made the originals (Alien, Aliens, The Terminator, and T2) so damn great. And even those complaining critics will never see the strengths of Cameron’s sequels. They know so much about film right? lol
Sarah is NOT gonna kill Dyson when she’s looking at him, face to face* My bad.
I could’nt agree more. I felt that all I have heard over all the Terminator films was how bad ass John would become. The film does a good job of showing how bad ass he is but the film didn’t follow in his footsteps. There are far too many plots that are not explained or inhanced on. I give it a three in a half out of five.
I don’t understand why everyone bags out Alien 3. It is easily my second favourite (behind Scott’s Alien) and has the gritty, hopelessness feel to it. The prisoners, especially Morse, offer humourous instances.
I’m sick of Cameron bagging out David Fincher when Aliens was plain and boring and full of all this marine macho stuff.
As for Salvation, they could have done worse BUT they could have done a lot better. It seems unlikely that Bale will by dropped for someone who looks like Connor in T2. And the Arnie cameo was terrible. There were no large scale battles or any insight like Hamilton would provide through voice-over. It was just a stupid hollywood cash cow.
I liked T1 better than T2.
In order to solve this problem, they’ll have to abandon salvation and work on a revamped T4. Forget Bale, put in Edward from T2 or something. Need LOTR style wars with thousands of terminators and humans battling out vientam style. Waddaya think??
Terminator Salvation is a very good movie. It is obvious that terminator can be stand-alone movie, without Schwarzenegger. The action scenes are awesome.
I watched this yesterday and am furious (okay, maybe disappointed) about this film. What a crock. I’m sorry, I’ve read a few of the previous posts and I don’t want to go over any previous ground but:
If I was a state-of-the-art self-replicating self-improving world-wide sentient computer system tasked with the job of removing my biggest threat (man), then I wouldn’t be building several-story high metal robots with claws to knock down buildings… Unless, of course, I figured my genocidal mayhem might play well to any of my surviving targets who had taken time out to watch a recent ‘Giant Robot’ blockbuster.
And: all the other stuff that has been said; I’d either agree or disagree – whatever you said.
This thread is still alive? Sweet! I love terminator!
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