Battling evil robots in poorly lit factories — Terminator Salvation embraces the series’ cliches without improving them
Tracking the Terminator franchise’s artistic descent from James Cameron’s first two genre masterpieces, through Jonathan Mostow’s fine-but-forgettable third instalment, to the recently cancelled television series, it should come as no surprise that the once-great property should find it in the hands of a fast-cut, post-MTV schmaltzmeister like McG (he of the Charlie’s Angels films). In spite of the director’s history, however, what’s interesting about Terminator Salvation — and it’s just about the only interesting thing — is McG’s often restrained, Cameron-homaging approach to the visuals and long, well-conceived action set pieces. There’s nary a scantily clad woman kicking ass on a dirtbike, and absolutely no rap-metal on the soundtrack. If that’s where your expectations were, go ahead and call this a win.
The film’s blessed lack of McG-isms notwithstanding, its other faults are legion. The biggest problem is the plot, which hovers somewhere between nonexistent and nonsensical. In a nutshell: In the grim future of 2019, robots have wiped out most of humanity. Marcus Wright, a death row inmate supposedly executed in 2003, crawls his way out of a robot base and quickly befriends a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), who fans will remember as the co-hero of the first film. Then the two of them run off to fight robot planes with a fire axe and scream a lot, respectively. Meanwhile, John Connor (Christian Bale), the prophesied saviour of humanity, is now a resistance fighter who spends most of his time disobeying his superior officers and trying to test a new weapon humanity has developed to fight the machines. Or something. The film never really commits to the escalation of either plotline, leaving both to languor at around the same level of development for 90 per cent of the runtime and providing none of the dramatic gravitas necessary to support the (technically very
impressive) action.
The real flop comes during the third-act climax, though, when McG’s Cameron fetishism finally collapses (Anyone remember the spark factory climax of T2? So does McG). With 30 minutes left, the film rushes through most of its plot, spouts some platitudes about fate, and shoehorns in way too many references to the first two films. The last few set pieces are a regurgitated bore, and there’s some laughably bad symbolism about hearts. Whatever small amount of tension McG has cultivated quietly evaporates during the finale.
Without a decent story or any relatable characters under all the explosions and shouting, the ending, like everything else, just feels pointless.
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