TERMINATOR: SALVATION is an abomination to the franchise. Allow me to suggest that you should not suspect otherwise.
I read one thing in the paper yesterday that suggested "the critics liked it" -(?) -- it garnered an astonishing Two And A Half stars in our local rag - - (!!) -- with a caveat that "it has no heart" -- well there's a shocker for ya -- I don't need to be reminded that a piece of waste matter like that has no cardiovascular system -- its a redundancy I can do without, thanks -- here's a movie that deserves not one whit more than a ZERO STAR rating, in my opinion.
How on earth anyone--a professional critic or otherwise--could possibly give this movie more than zero stars is beyond me. This sorry excuse for a Terminator movie is firing on all chambers when it comes to missing the mark.
There is no shred of a plot with any grounded sense of coherence whatsoever. The director McG's notion of a plot can be summed up in a name, "John Connor." Oh wait, I forgot--there is a twist. (Don't worry about spoilers--It would be quite difficult to spoil this for you, and I don't mean that in a cheeky way. I literally mean that it is impossible for something without any meat, to be spoiled. So read on. The "tweest" is "Kyle Reese." Just throw in another iconic sounding character name with which an awestruck silence is generated every time its mentioned, and there you have it: the totality of this movie's plot (and don't ask me for an explanation, the movie offers none).
And just as bad as there being no plot to speak of, is the excruciatingly unfortunate realization that the setting, nearly a decade in the future (2018, from the date of this review), has no visionary qualities, and I have to point out here that it isn't for any potentially noble reason such as having accurately predicted that not much will change in 9 years; no. It's because they filmed this with what must have been McG and crew's own jeeps and equipment. Throw some military camo netting and things bought on sale at your local army surplus store, and wala -!- you have "Terminator: Salvation". When all the dust settles, you sit there blinking in astonishment that there really wasn't one worthy thing about this movie. No awesome future setting. No fully realized terminator army. Just a few badly strewn-together props with stale, cheesy dialog attempting to support them.
But the movie did have some thought put into it. There is the token ragamuffin 9 year old girl with the nappy hair (check); her charming, teenaged companion with the mystery persona (check); and their god-given ability to pop out of nowhere with a convenient remote triggering device to blow up titanic renegade Terminators at a moment's notice (check).
This movie is far less than the sum of its assembly of parts. Assembled entirely from every genre movie that came before it--you betcha. I kid you not: if you were to painstakingly eliminate each and every scene and reference to a previous movie (Mad Max, Road Warrior, Terminators, etc) you would be left with nothing. It is that unoriginal.
So here's the deal. I've warned you not to waste your time and money and consciousness seeing this, and I meant it. Seeing as how I happen to know that this is suposed to be a special installment or continuation of a franchise that means a lot to us, I don't expect you to take my word for it. I know how it is. You want to find out for yourself; hell, you need to. I understand. So let's make a deal.
Halfway through the movie, the only thought running through my head was "I should lead a revolt of audience members to the box office demanding our money back". Lord, do I ever wish I had at least tried. To do so, I would naturally have had to begin hurling obscenities at the screen, and I didn't because, well, I didn't want to ruin the possibility that others might be, *cough* enjoying themselves *wince*. Do I ever regret that, now.
When the ultimate slap to the face arrives (the end credits), you too will wish YOU had been the leader of such a noble revolt. So NOW you have the opportunity handed to you on a silver platter! I beseech thee all--should you feel that you must discover for yourselves how bad this movie really is--someone must take the responsibility to just yell out midway through this cinematic miscarriage "THIS SUX!" with their fist in the air, and I can't imagine nobody else in the theater agreeing or muttering their sympathetic consent. TAKE the opportunity to leap to your feet and look wildly around you. FIND the people frozen in their seats with eyes glazed over---decent people like you and me who have obviously invested their hope, high expectations, valuable time, and hard-earned money--SNAP them awake to the realization that WE DON'T DESERVE THIS from Hollywood! Shout out dramatically "LET'S GO GET OUR MONEY BACK, PEOPLE" and lead their way out of that theater and to the front lobby. To quote a much better movie, "You can do it!"
I want to read about it in the papers, how good people in several midwestern states ROSE UP and DEMANDED their money back. Because if we all just sit there like sheep stunned into submission--then we deserve yet another prefabricated, derivative installment shoved down our throats. Let this be a lesson to all who would blunder into a theater to see a movie by someone named McG. If its zero nutrition fast food movie franchise features that you want--then you know where to line up.
TERMINATOR: SALVATION opened in theaters nationwide Thursday, May 21st, 2009.
