Film Review: Terminator: Salvation

"What is it that makes us human? It's not something you can program. You can't put it into a chip. It's the strength of the human heart. The difference between us and machines." - Sam Worthington

The first two Terminator films hinted at the frightening post-nuclear-war future, overrun by SkyNet and its army of machines. Terminator 3 showed how it came to pass. Finally, in 2009, Terminator: Salvation would be the first film to show the actual future wars of the franchise in full.

To be frank, my first impression was not the best. I took issue with Christian Bale's aggressive take on John Connor, and the film's focus on Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) as the main character. To say nothing of the actual plot, which seems like a mad rush to slap John, Marcus, and Kyle Reese together, just because destiny says they have to.

On repeat viewings, I learned to accept the film as it is. This is still an action-driven film, and the action does not disappoint. It does a decent job of showing planes and soldiers clashing with SkyNet's terminators, Goliaths, and hunter-killers in some modestly epic war scenes. The chase scene between the tow truck, the giant terminator, the motorbike terminators, and the giant HK is a thrilling piece of work. The final confrontations in the SkyNet factory are pretty cool. The pacing is high most of the time, and the film overall is appropriately gritty, dark, and intense.

The story doesn't really progress the franchise much, aside from uniting the characters we know and love together, and showing a little more insight on the future war. Its biggest contribution is in introducing Marcus as a character, who comes to represent a larger theme that puts the movie into a thrilling new context: the film overall asks the question, what does it mean to be human? Through a series of dramatic twists, the film reaches a decently profound conclusion.

The film looks good, with solid photography and quality editing. There are a lot of great looking shots throughout. Acting is not bad at all: even though I found it hard to accept Christian Bale's performance as John Connor (thanks largely to Bale's supposed outburst during the film's shooting, and his previous portrayal as Batman), I realized that he is doing his best to match up with Edward Furlong's character in T2, and he does so with an appropriate level of nuance and aggression. Sam Worthington is surprisingly excellent in his role. Anton Yelchin is not bad as Kyle Reese, but could have used more scenes. Writing overall is pretty good. This production has decent sets, props, costumes, and special effects. Music is good.

I'd recommend this as a rental.

4/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Good | Film: Good)