Pronouns and perceptions carry great weight in Terminator Salvation. A lot of frazzled brains and aching hearts pile up in the divide between “it” and “he.”
It's kind of a shocking that such a quiet idea peeks out from a powerhouse packed with so many explosions that some of them merely introduce bigger, faster and louder sequences. So goes the powerful on-set pen of Jonathan Nolan – brother to Christopher, collaborator on The Dark Knight and “lead writer” here, according to director McG.
Salvation shares WGA-credited writers (John Brancato and Michael Ferris) and an invigorating mid-movie road chase with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. But it's clear from the start that this robot endoskeleton has more flesh. (Although kudos go to Brancato and Ferris if they were the ones to conceive both chases – the most recent of which morphs into full aerial warfare.)
Salvation ultimately is too patchy in plot and dragged down by the increasingly tiresome glower-and-growl style of co-star Christian Bale to achieve greatness. And yet, it has so much come-close ambition to the heights of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (still a giddy delight 18 years later) that it yields a smashing ride.
Terminator Salvation Packs War-Like Wallop With Sci-Fi Sensibilities
Atoning for the hellish Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, McG delivers a futuristic Apocalypse Now by way of Philip K. Dick. Cribbing, however impressively, from Alfonso Cuaron and Paul Greengrass, the film swirls in and around stalling helicopters, gigantic robots and cars torched and flipped like they were Hot Wheels. As kinetic as this is, it never feels chaotic; ever the storyboarder, McG isn't one to succumb to shaky cameras. There also are plenty of mythology nods - some impressively subtle, some that clang like the footfall of a T-600. (The one that will generate maximum applause is a nifty trick, but it's far from the best.)
Salvation also is relentlessly grim. Even an Alice in Chains song is selected for maximum mopey lyrics, and you can almost feel the throat-coating dust of the scorched earth left after a nuclear attack. (Clearly reaching for newcomers with a PG-13 rating, Salvation offers a story recap.)
Set in 2018, it’s a world where a network of machines called Skynet has taken control, leaving only a small, if well-armed, band of humans to fight back. Their ideological leader is John Connor (Bale) – an emotionally burdened, battle-hardened soldier whose future long has been entwined with that of mankind.
Christian Bale’s Repetitive Intensity Overwhelms John Connor’s Hero Appeal
Terminator acolytes know this as the future from which John sends his father, Kyle Reese, to the past to protect and impregnate his mother to ensure his own existence. Yet when Skynet publicly targets John and Kyle (Anton Yelchin, excelling as a scrawny, scrappy teenager), John seeks Kyle out earlier than he'd expected, all while prepping an attack that could tip the scales in the humans' favor.
It's fine that the jittery, jive-talking John of old has morphed into a stoic near-mute. But given all that we know John knows about his generation-spanning connection to Kyle, it's absurd that Bale can muster no flickers of emotional concern. What could be quasi-paternal is instead just a tactical mission.
Nor does John hint at the humanity of a guy who's a father-to-be. (As she was in Spider-Man 3, Bryce Dallas Howard is merely a franchise's female windowdressing, playing John's wife.) Is it really too much to ask Bale to finally unclench both sets of cheeks as an actor? John is so dour that even procreative sex seems too enjoyable a prospect for him. Bale terminates John’s rebellious glee for on-the-fly computer programming, replacing it with one tuneless note of humorlessness.
Sam Worthington Proves To Be the Real Star, Driving Figure of Terminator Salvation
Connor has the spiritual initials, but the film’s Christ figure is Marcus Wright (Worthington) – a Death Row inmate who didn't expect to be resurrected in 2018 when donating his body to science. Roaming the desert, Marcus finds Reese, whom he reluctantly takes on as a charge. When Skynet nabs Reese, it unexpectedly brings Marcus and Connor together.
Worthington must work on keeping his thick Aussie accent in check. But his almost exclusively physical characterization is almost as towering and thrilling as Arnold Schwarzenegger's was in the original Terminator.
Plus, Marcus’s confusion and guilt complex sturdily evoke popcorn notions of fate versus freewill - a mammoth motif in each Terminator. It leads to the chintziest concession to the PG-13 crowd - a bogusly hopeful ending - but McG and Nolan salvage a story that's robotic in subject by making its nature organic.
Nick Rogers - Nick Rogers has been an editor and writer in the fields of arts & entertainment and features for the past 13 years. This isn't surprising ...
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