‘Terminator: Salvation’ jumpstarts a tired franchise

By Evan Riddell

Christian Bale, left, as John Connor and Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright star in “Terminator Salvation.”

Western Herald

The “Terminator” franchise has always been a bit of an anomaly. While its grasp on time-travel is tenuous, the first two films were huge blockbusters, and the 2003 “Rise of the Machines” took everything good in the series and killed it off, as if to mock its fans.

Prequel/sequel/inter-quel (time travel does wonders for continuity) “Terminator: Salvation” sidesteps the problems of the last film and gives fans what they want: robots kicking the artificial snot out of each other, Christian Bale growling, and big explosions.

Director and Kalamazoo-native McG (the “Charlie’s Angels” series) eschewed the time travel motif of the last three films in favor of focusing on the human resistance’s increasingly desperate fight against the machines.

With a background in music videos, McG gives the action scenes flare and style, while the plot-moving scenes fall more than a little flat. Finally seeing what everyone was so worried about is a great pay-off, and the burned-out buildings and shifting deserts of the future are much more convincing than smoky blue roads covered in human skulls for the machines to crush like the last films.

No longer the whiny brat knocking over ATMs, Christian Bale is the John Connor we’ve been hearing about for the last three films and recently cancelled television series. After all of last summer’s
“The Dark Knight” hoopla cementing Bale as Bruce Wayne in the public consciousness, seeing him as the Christ-like Resistance leader was a bit of a stretch. Though he is our generation’s brightest action star, he seems to be Bale as John Connor rather than just John Connor. Where someone like Johnny Depp can disappear in a role, Bale’s trademark stare and desperate need of a throat lozenge keep the audience from letting go of his other films. However, his action scenes are well-done, and he is one of the strongest actors in the production.

Aussie Sam Worthington plays Marcus Wright, a death row inmate who donates his body to science and wakes up in the middle of the post-apocalyptic war. Taking over the pre-requisite “robot on humanity’s side” role Schwarzenegger played in the last sequels, Worthington has a leg up on the competition: his character isn’t just a killing machine, he has his old personality, thus allowing him to act, which was a problem for the last Terminators. When half his chrome skull is exposed, Worthington bears striking similarities to Schwarzenegger’s first portrayal in the original.

Anton Yelchin plays a young Kyle Reese, the hero of the first film. The “Charlie Bartlett” and “Star Trek” star has been popping up a lot lately, and he replaces Michael Biehn from the first film. Rapper Common (“American Ganster”) and Helena Bonham Carter (“Fight Club,” “Sweeney Todd”) also make appearances as Connor’s right-hand man and a scientist working on extending and reanimating life, respectively.

The special effects make this film shine. Not content in just using CG, the movie features old-school animatronics and men in suits along with computer generated scenes. In the climax of the film, a special guest appearance (I shan’t spoil it for you) is convincing and just enough to get fanboys drooling and anyone who grew up with the first two films a nostalgic smile.

With comparisons to the 10-year-old “Matrix” series inescapable, the human/machine war and main character with a Christ-complex play out differently. Less a cerebral meditation on philosophy and more of an excuse to blow things up, the Christ references are heavy-handed and begin in the opening credits scene, but fall by the wayside once the final act gets rolling.

“Terminator: Salvation” makes no bones about itself: it knows it’s nothing more than a great action movie and little else. It does the almost-impossible in that it allows audiences to forget the travesty of “Rise of the Machines” and shows how bad the future will get once our robot overlords come online. Go catch the film in theaters with the surround sound and bask in the first good bonehead summer action flick of the season.

Evan Riddell, a Western Herald Arts writer, is a junior majoring in journalism and can be reached via e-mail at evan.m.riddell@wmich.edu

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on May 27 2009. Filed under A & E. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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