Fletch's Film Review: Terminator Salvation

The first Terminator film introduced us to a woman named Sarah Connor. We were told that her son, John, would grow up to be a freedom fighter against a futuristic army of robots hellbent on destroying all mankind. We were also introduced to a mysterious man, sent from the future to protect her from one of the aforementioned evil robots, and we would later learn that he would turn out to be the father of this as-yet-unborn son. So she was saddled not only with the knowledge of a bleak future for humans, but with the responsibility of keeping her son alive so that he might live long enough to send someone back in time to save her and ensure his own existence. Heavy stuff - it's no wonder she was thought to be crazy.

It is, however, somewhat of a wonder that that story spawned three additional films and one TV show. With a larger budget and enhanced special effects (and seven years in which to come up with the story), it wasn't a big surprise that T2 ended up, in most, respects, a better film than its predecessor. Similarly, with a mid-50s Schwarzenneger, no other stars and the source authors uninvolved, it came as no great shock that Terminator 3 failed to keep audiences involved with the story. Which makes the success of Terminator Salvation downright amazing, especially to someone like me that was essentially uninterested in the franchise after the second film - after all, how much juice could there be in this story? There were really only three human characters that had any importance to begin with, and with one out of the picture (mother Sarah), what's left to tell?

You may or may not have noticed that on the above poster (and in the opening credits), star Christian Bale shares top billing with another actor. It's Sam Worthington, and before you say "Who?" as I might have, you ought to see the film. Turns out Sam's the star of this film after all, and the main reason the film works as well as it does. This takes nothing away from Bale, who gives a fine performance - this just isn't his story. This one is about Worthington's Marcus Wright, a character that does some time-travelling of his own (in a manner of speaking), and who ends up teaching Connor and the rest of the resistance fighters more about humanity than they had learned in all of their previous years fighting against the machines.

As with seemingly every reboot/sequel/remake we've seen over the past few years, Salvation does an excellent job of melding fresh material with winks and nods to the glory of yesterday's films. Bits and pieces of all three prior Terminators make their way into this one, and this is the second film of the summer set in the future that features a heavy rotation of 90s alt-rock hits (Star Trek featured the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" for no good reason other than it's a kickass song that kind of fit the mood of the scene). Director McG lays off the heavy-handed dread of T2 and Rise of the Machines and also does well by not making this the fourth Terminator film to be little more than a two-hour chase sequence. Which isn't to say that there aren't chase scenes or other action set pieces galore - after all, that is the bread and butter of the series. But by cutting down on the "been there, done that" factor while at the same time hearkening back to the themes of what made T2 work so well, he's made an engaging, thoughtful action flick that stands proudly alongside the first two films.

Fletch's Film Rating:

"Darn tootin!"

Random leftover thoughts:

* How great is it to have Michael Ironside back in a top-notch action flick. I feel like it's 1989 all over again. Sure, he doesn't have that much screen time, but a little bit of him has always gone a long way, anyhow. I surely enjoyed his presence.

* Should Common just change his name to "Fiercely Loyal Black Sidekick?" I hate to reduce him to that, as I think he's capable of being much more, but I don't think I'm the one doing the reducing. With this, Wanted, and Smoking Aces already showcasing this role on his limited resume, it's clear that he needs to pick his scripts a little more carefully, no matter how big budget they may be.

* Mild spoiler: loved the handling and execution of the fake Arnold. Not only did they bring in a guy that has played Arnold in a made-for-TV movie to be the body (Roland Kickinger), but they did a better job of faking his face than the X-Men folks did making Professor X younger, all the while having Patrick Stewart on set.

* Milder spoiler: Did we really need the mute black child? Sure, have the kid, but why mute? On the other hand, at least they didn't make her miraculously talk at any point, as that would've been really lame.

* That helicopter crash sequence early on felt really unnecessary, but at the same time, it was filmed pretty fandamntasically. One instance of style winning out over substance.

* Here's how much I avoid press these days for big budget films that I plan on seeing (though even I couldn't escape the knowledge that Arnold was gonna be in this): I had no idea Helena Bonham Carter had a role. Good job by the producers at getting some acting heavyweights (her, Bale, Bryce Dallas Howard, for starters) on board. Though Moon Bloodgood didn't exactly blow me away at times.