Hola all. Massawyrm here.
We are a house divided here at AICN. I haven’t seen a reaction this across the map in a long time. Some of us violently hated TERMINATOR SALVATION with 2800wd scathing reviews waiting in the wings. Others found it forgettable and unnecessary. I feel like the odd man out. I actually enjoyed the hell out of it – but even I have my problems - a trio of tolerable, but serious problems that keep this from becoming a really awesome film in my eyes. McG did a great job with the action, that’s for sure. But there is one seriously missed opportunity here that leaves the film on a hollow note sure to sour many against it.
Let’s get the primary beef out of the way: I have a serious issue with films that desperately want to be a trilogy. Recently we’ve had films like PUSH and JUMPER that have tried desperately to set themselves up as franchises and in doing so refused to use any of their characters up. Villains go unpunished, stories go unresolved and we have a large climax that ultimately does nothing but look cool. And it leaves you with that empty feeling of watching a very long first act. Well, that’s the ending here. Once you start watching this, you will know EXACTLY how this movie is SUPPOSED to end. If you know anything about the TERMINATOR movies at all you will just know instinctively what is supposed to happen. But it doesn’t. That’s not the story this movie wants to tell. They want to get to that ending later. Right now, they want to tell this story. And the problem is that this story isn’t as good as the one you are waiting to see.
Because we know who John Connor is. We’ve been following the adventures of this mean, ornery son of a bitch since before he was born. We know what he is destined to do, what he will mean to humanity when his time comes. And we know about the fateful day that he sends his own father back in time to protect his mother and plant the seed of revolution – so to speak. What we don’t know is what happens to him after that day. I mean, does he even survive getting out of the time travel facility? Do we win against the machines? What the hell happens next? It would seem logical that this is exactly the point that a filmmaker would want to pick up and run with the ball. Because after he’s done what we all know he does…he can die. And knowing that he has mortality makes John Connor really interesting again.
But TERMINATOR SALVATION has other plans. This isn’t entirely John Connor’s story. It’s also Marcus Wright’s story. And unfortunately one can’t watch a single trailer with knowing what his story is. That’s the second problem. Once you’re introduced to him in the film, what information you already have ruins any real mystery surrounding his character. But they go through the motions of mystery anyway and tell a fairly interesting story. Just not the one they should be telling. And it feels like a lot of buildup for a payoff we never get.
And his story leads to the third and final problem. There is a single character moment in this that is so wildly out of place that it defies even the series own convoluted logic. What this character does is against everything they would seem to stand for, against everything they should believe in. And it is so irrational that it completely takes you out of the film. If you’ve seen the film you know exactly who and what I’m talking about. It is a ridiculous moment meant to set up an emotional payoff that I understand but cannot condone because of how out of the movie it takes you for a spell. And while this series isn’t exactly what I would call cemented in logic, there is always a certain amount of believability you must maintain to keep your audience invested.
I mean come on. I LOVE the TERMINATOR series. It is so much a part of my childhood that it is not even funny. I went from dressing like an Ewok for Halloween in the 3rd grade to dressing as Arnold Schwarzenegger in the jacket and glasses in the 4th. And did so for three years straight. But this series revolves around a guy who sent his own father back in time to protect and knock up his mother so he could be born and raised as a little badass who would save humanity from a robot army that built a time machine to kill his mother and ultimately allowed him to be born. The series is a nest of wacky logic that only works if you accept the TIMECRIMES/LOST school of thought that the moment you create a time machine, everything the time machine sends back has already happened and the past can no longer be changed – even though it is about to be. But of course that undercuts all the tension of these films if you know that John Conner is going to live no matter what, so that’s never been the way they’ve presented it.
Now, that said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the action here. McG does a great job of putting you in the middle of some crazy, awesome battles against the machines. From gritty urban warfare against stray terminators to dogfights against Hunter-Killer airships, this thing hits a number of extremes and puts us in a world entirely destroyed by the machines. This is a post-apocalyptic film, a nuclear waste nightmare in which the last few humans alive work together in a loosely organized network to try and bring down the machines. There are some very cool sequences and not a boring moment to be found throughout the breathless film.
There’s also a very cool underlying element of just what kind of hero John Connor is. Some see him as a prophet, unaware that he’s getting all of his tips of the future from a book on tape dictated by his mother who may or may not have been crazy. Of course we all know she was relatively sane (or at least right about the future), but there is a definite feeling of resentment about this rising hero who isn’t really living up to the legend yet. And I really, really dug that.
The film is a lot of fun. An explosive, thrilling series of gritty action sequences that makes for a good, but not great, film. I definitely want to see another, but I want to see them go darker, grimmer and get the plot that we’re all waiting to see out of the way so they can finish this thing up with the possibilities completely up in the air about what can and will happen next. I had a good time, but out of the seven major blockbusters released this month, this is ranked fourth on my list. I’ll watch it again at a matinee if I get a chance, but I won’t be broken hearted if I somehow get delayed and end up not catching it again until DVD.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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