James Cameron’s The Terminator is an undisputed classic. It’s a perfectly honed thriller and a testament to the idea that, with enough skill and passion, filmmakers can transcend the limitations of a tight budget and deliver a masterful rendering of a simple but engaging concept.
Cameron’s 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, is considered by many to be one of the most successful and exciting action movies of all time. It’s certainly an adrenaline driven extravaganza, but I’ve always felt like it lost that sense of dark and desperate energy that made the original such a perfectly realized fever dream. Without question, by the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the series had almost completely lost its way.
Unfortunately, Terminator: Salvation offers the franchise little redemption. This latest attempt has a lot of things going for it, but it’s burdened by forgettable characters, a seemingly unworkable script, and an absolutely senseless story. There are scenes that work and elements that click, but this is nothing more than a fancy machine with impressive bells and whistles but no true purpose and nothing worthwhile under the hood.
Terminator: Salvation opens on a world dominated and devastated by machines. Years ago, a military artificial intelligence called Skynet became self-aware. Sensing humanity as a threat to its existence, Skynet launched a preemptive nuclear strike, decimating most of the world’s population in a holocaust the survivors called Judgment Day. The few pockets of humanity that remained simply struggled to survive and evade extinction at the metal hands of Skynet’s relentless robots, until they found hope and the inspiration to fight back under the leadership of John Conner.
John’s mother, Sarah, trained him from birth to be a gifted solider and a masterful tactician. She knew he would grow up to be the leader of the Resistance because in 1984, Skynet sent a cybernetic terminator back in time to kill her before John was ever born. Thankfully, the John Conner of the future sent back one of his fellow fighters, Kyle Reese, to protect his mother, ensure his birth, and prevent Skynet from winning the war before it happened.
In the year 2018, John Conner (Christian Bale) hasn’t yet met Kyle Reese, but he soon learns that Kyle is at the top of a Skynet hit list. Meanwhile, Resistance technicians have discovered a signal buried deep within Skynet communications that may help humanity end the war once and for all. Racing against time, and aided by a mysterious stranger named Marcus (Sam Worthington), Conner must manage the ramp-up to an all-out assault and rescue Kyle before Skynet can kill him and rewrite history.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was a mediocre movie salvaged somewhat by a clever and unsettling twist in the final act. Terminator: Salvation finds itself in just the opposite situation. Something slips early in the third act, and by the time the credits drop on a strangely rushed and hollow ending, the whole production has ground to a completely disastrous halt. Any good will the film might have built in the beginning is exhausted by the time you walk out of the theater.
This change in tone and quality is so jarring that I almost have to think of this film as two separate movies. The opening 90 minutes aren’t deep, and they certainly aren’t mentally or emotionally engaging, but these first two acts are exciting, frightening, and genuinely thrilling. The action and suspense are arresting and gripping, and the special effects are convincing and used compellingly.
If nothing else, Terminator: Salvation looks and sounds terrific. The production design by Martin Laing and Shane Hurlbut’s inspired cinematography are gorgeous in their gritty realism and strangely muted vibrancy. Everything just looks right. The giant robots look menacing, the ghastly terminators are frightening, and the beleaguered and bereaved human survivors look appropriately harried, but resolute.
The sound design is also an integral part of the success of these early scenes. The soundtrack is alive with defining roars and unsettlingly robotic menace. Unfortunately, Danny Elfman’s score, while perfectly adequate, never seems to capture the true essence of this terrifying world. He seldom references the source material, and when he does acknowledge the series’ signature theme, it sounds overblown and out of place.
Of course, this impressive preamble to the train wreck to come isn’t without its problems. I lost interest in Fox’s short-lived TV show, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles, because it was full of tortured characters and morose introspection, but short on genuine action and entertainment. Terminator: Salvation has the opposite problem. It’s blessed with a wealth of nicely staged and well-directed action, but it all seems meaningless without compelling characters and a coherent story to anchor it.
Every character is fatally underwritten and the cast does little to flesh them out. Christian Bale is a gifted actor, but he’s a mediocre John Conner. The series has focused on John before, but it has only depicted him as rebellious teen and a complacent young adult. The John Conner of the Resistance, a revered leader and mythic hero, has always been treated at a distance.
It’s quite likely than no actor could have done justice to such a shadowy and deified character. Bale’s Conner is a fair and compassionate man of action, but he’s never quite the titan we need him to be. It doesn’t help that the script is as sharp as a rusted spoon and poisoned with some genuinely (and unintentionally) hilarious dialogue. I must admit though, that there were some tributes to the series’ history that, while perhaps a bit obvious, did make me smile.
Terminator: Salvation original ending was leaked on the internet many months ago. While it offered a bold premise, fans reacted so violently that the studio was forced to order chances to the script and shoot a new ending.
Unfortunately, this new lukewarm conclusion completely explodes any emotional tension and stretches any sense of continuity. Saddled with this lazy and unimaginative storytelling, the film’s final 30 minutes manage to be both predictable and nonsensical. It’s so bad that I was able to come up with a better plot on my way home from the multiplex.
To make matters worse, the action and the special effects, which had both been going strong up to this point, begin a precipitous dive beyond redemption. These closing moments are little more than garish cartoons that strain credulity and do a great disservice to the franchise. It’s a distressing and disappointing final note that unfortunately colors your perception of the film as a whole.
Terminator: Salvation is the first movie in the series to be rated PG-13, but despite its tamer rating, the film is probably still too intense for younger viewers. This post-apocalyptic world is haunted by mammoth robots, mechanical monstrosities, and lumbering, heavily armed cyborgs constantly on the hunt for human survivors. Much of the film is frighteningly loud and punctuated by a number of startling jump scares.
Many people are shot, tossed around and beaten by terminators, incinerated in nuclear explosions and laser blasts, or rounded up and imprisoned in forbidding concentration camps. A sympathetic character is shot at close range. A group of marauders seem intent on sexual assault, but there plan is foiled in a vicious fist fight. There’s also a touch of sexually suggestive content and a dash of bad language.
On the positive side, the film focuses on redemption, elevates the values of bravery, selflessness and trust, and celebrates the sanctity of life and the compassion and empathy that make us human.
Terminator: Salvation is another stinging disappointment in this hit-or-miss summer season. It’s not a terrible film, but its senseless story, shallow characters, and shoddy ending reveal its Achilles heel: Terminator: Salvation has no reason to exist. It’s not so much a movie as a collection of scenes of varying quality and execution patched together without a coherent plot or a compelling narrative to bind them.
Caution Rating: 8
