MR Terminator 4

Judgment Day has come and gone.

I've seen the future of mankind, and it looked like a photoshopped Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Judgment Day. The war against the machines begins. But at least we still got these reviews:

The Terminator / Judgment Day / Rise of the Machines

Movie: Terminator Salvation
Directed by McG 
Release date 2009
Genre Action/Science-fiction
Country USA

Terminator 4 - I mean, Terminator Salvation is the fourth installment in the long running Terminator franchise.

And while it only came out in 2009, six years after Rise of the Machines, it had been in production since around that time.

C2 Pictures, the production company behind part 3 originally intended to make T3 and T4 back to back. They actually outlined both the third and fourth movie at the same time, to eventually film them simultaneously. But these expensive movies cost quite a lot, so these plans were shot quickly.

T3 director Jonathan Mostow developed some plans and worked on it for a while but they had to be scrapped when Schwarzy became governor of California.

Then in 2009, it finally was the Halcyon Company that acquired the rights to this franchise. Director Joss Whedon also tried to get a crack at Terminator, bidding on the IP, but sadly lost. Whedon often said he was a big fan of the series and he just really loves the concept behind Terminator. Joss Whedon later tried to buy the franchise back for $10,000 when Halcyon had to go under bankrupty and sell it.

Halcyon wanted Terminator 4 to be the start of a possible new trilogy. They had several writers working on a screenplay pretty fast (and it's never a good sign when you have several of them on the same flick, just see Michael Bay's movies...)

Terminator Salvation takes place  in 2018.

Following the Judgment Day that took place in 2004.

Skynet became self aware, and the machines waged war on humanity.

John Connor is now seen living to his destiny and leading humanity against Skynet forces.

Skynet is releasing new types of Terminator a bit earlier than expected. The machines are now using human subjects to work on some infiltrator models.

At the same time we are following Marcus Wright, a death row inmate from before the war that doesn't seem to remember much.

Marcus meets with a young Kyle Reese while trying to escape from the "rubber skin"-covered T-600s.

The machines are trying to track him down since Kyle's destined to father John Connor. And John Connor also wants to find him.

In the middle of that, we get the origin behind the T-800 Model 101 Terminator. The story takes us all over the place from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Oh, and hybrid cyborgs...

The movie feels a bit like a patchwork most of the time - and that is where the main problem lies within Salvation.

While Terminator 3 tried too much to be Terminator 2 without James Cameron, following the same structure, etc. Terminator 4 tries to outdo all the entires in a single picture. A thousand times more.

Terminator 4 tries to much for its own good. The film attempts to do a lot of stuff in two hours. Two hours that spend most time stretching action scenes beyond reasonable necessity. It's one action scene after the other, overdoing it most of the time. A big loud action film. And when it tries to get talky and develop the few characters with quieter dramatic scenes its gets really boring, with abysmal dialogues...

Terminator Salvation was written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris . To whom we have to thank for the awful Catwoman movie... (remember that?) Incidentally Jonathan Nolan also worked on it uncredited, on the set.

It feels like the film went under several edits and many scenes were cut out with some scenes cutting abruptly from one into another. (they weren't decided how to close the final act during the production) They introduce several plotlines and subplots, characters are badly used or change radically depending on the situation, throwing nods at the series and establishing details for the franchise...

One second a giant harvester-type robot throws lasers at red shirts and kills them instantly. The next, it sends Terminator-moto-bots at the main character for more unnecessary action scenes. As blatant as ever.

It also suffers from the direction. It's one of these best examples you have with action films nowadays. McG, the Charlie's Angels movies director, started his career in music videos. And it shows. Like most recent directors of his generation they don't give editing much attention, and it's mess. Shaky cams, editing problems, all the clichés of the genre, you name it.

While Jonathan Mostow was attached to T4, Nick Stahl and Claire Danes were expect to return as John Connor and Kate Brewst.

Bryce Dallas Howard took over as Kate Connor. She did fairly good considering the few we see of her. And Christian Bale is John Connor. In name only. You might like the Batman movies, but I'm pretty sure it's no thanks to him. His acting his as wooden as ever, he doesn't handle a candle on any of the past actors who got to portray him prior to Terminator 4. He spends the entire picture shouting. Let's not forget the controversial tantrum he threw at the crew - there's no excuse to that.

Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) carry most of film on their shoulders, when you get bored of the CGi fest.

Moon Bloodgood plays Blair Williams who I don't remember doing much... what's her character's role exactly? And a certain Roland Kickinger portrays the robotic T-800 in the end (with his face edited for the big surprise).

At least one recurring theme remains from the series, someone important for the future has to be protected to accomplish his destiny. This time being Kyle Reese.

Stan Winston got to finally design the T-600, coming full circle since the first movie. But in a sad turn of events, it was also the last film he worked on (THIS!?!). He built all the machines even those represented by 3D graphics in the finished product. Salvation was dedicated to him.

While the MotoTerminators are obvious Ducati advertisements, I don't have much problem with the CGi Arnold at the end. In fact, I find his lifeless eyes and "uncanny valley" looks perfect for the canonically first T-800 Terminator. His unreal skin make him a perfect Terminator. They couldn't only achieve a better effect by using an animatronic Schwarzenegger for close shots.

Perhaps it's principal problem was its huge budget. Over $200 million dollars! Way too much, was it really needed? 

Danny Elfman took over for the score this time. And while it's definitively missing some iconic cues it does its job. Being as generic and epic as possible. (and I'm saying that as a huge Danny Elfman fan usually...)

Overall, an average post-apocalyptic war movie that decides to become a Terminator movie in the final act.

A movie that simply doesn't feel necessary. It never was about the war itself, and despite that this one doesn't bring nothing new really. Except explosions. Lots of explosions.

And yet the war never gets the long awaited epic proportions promised by the bits of flashbacks (flashforwards?) we got in the previous films. It's like the war against the machines is being played on a very small scale. Be barely see any resistances. The world is still clean enough despite the abandoned cities and roads. And there appears to be so few machines (which look uninspired and generic thanks to modern day over-detailed computer graphics).

It's a bit boring for a glorified "chase movie" series Terminator has always been all about.

Salvation feels like it would have been better as a TV series (speaking of, shortly after T4 we got Sarah Connor Chronicles...). Like it's the pilot for a new on-going series.

Yet some fan service finds its way in movie thanks to some one liners, rare musical cues, the CGi Arnold...

Halcyon was hoping for a new trilogy. And signed McG for at least two films. But they had to close doors shortly after.

Terminator Salvation isn't bad per say. I mean there's still some good in it. It's a fun brainless popcorn movie "kids" can enjoy no doubt. But that's all it is. Just a dumb incoherent movie.

I give it:

1.5 / 3 UFOs!