Terminator Salvation
At last it can be told: Christian Bale was merely staying in character. As the sixth incarnation of John Connor, resistance fighter extraordinaire against the future’s A.I. baddies, the onetime Swing Kid exudes an intensity uncannily similar to the torrent of profane dickishness that became a viral phenom earlier this year. (Sadly, the producers didn’t see fit to play the rant’s infectious dance remix over the end credits.) So vein-spoutingly serious is Bale—he even goes toe-to-toe in a shout-off with legendary ham Michael Ironside—it appears he thinks he’s doing Hamlet. In truth he’s really headlining Generic Postapocalyptic Thriller No. 89.
Set well after Skynet has laid waste to most of humanity, Terminator Salvation focuses not so much on Bale’s Connor as Sam Worthington’s Marcus, a dully taciturn cyborg initially unaware that his exoskeleton is made of metal. Marcus struggles to gain the trust of the dubious Conner so he can help him save Anton Yelchin’s Kyle Reese, the scrappy teen who will eventually be sent back in time to protect/bang/impregnate Connor’s mom. Meanwhile, a major offensive is building, which may include a cameo from a creepily CGI’d version of a certain beefcake governor.
Terminator Salvation is the first of the franchise set entirely during the robot-human tussle. Frankly, there’s a reason the rest have been sent in the here and now: Everyone and their mother does postapocalyptic. Arriving late in the game, Salvation can’t help but feel awfully familiar; it’s less a Terminator entry than Mad Max, Planet of the Apes and Children of Men rolled into one pricey fourquel that offers nothing new beside really fucking big robots, as opposed to your usual really big robots.
Technically, none of the Terminator sequels have been necessary, but James Cameron gave T2 a lean brutality and Breakdown’s Jonathan Mostow gave the silly Rise of the Machines B-movie charm. Director McG, needlessly trying to shake off his Charlie’s Angels image, tries to come off as dark. He shakes his camera, whips out bits of one-take mayhem and throws in themes of fate, humanity, etc.
But the filmic stunts are derivative (hello, Alfonso Cuaron), the darkness sub-sub-sub-Christopher Nolan and its philosophy brainless; talk of second chances would mean something if the characters weren’t routinely given not just second, but third, fourth, even 10th chances. C
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