Terminator Salvation: Review By Rama's SCREEN

I’m NOT in awe of TERMINATOR SALVATION. It lacks certain elements that make you feel you gotta run from the machine or you’ll die.. at least that feeling doesn’t present itself until the final scene. McG fails to make this movie his own because… he tries too hard to please the fans of the franchise and focuses too much on making references to previous installments, they happen way too often. The action sequences are mildly amusing, I wouldn’t call them adrenaline rush. We are introduced to all kinds of new threats in water, on land and air but they all come off ordinary.

We know that The Dark Knight screenwriter Jonathan Nolan had a small part in helping out with the last draft that was initially written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris. Nolan didn’t get the credit but I’d like to assume the small percentage of the effective themes belongs to him. Overall, when it comes to the dialogue, cheesy doesn’t even begin to describe it, I think I’ve heard some of the lines said in some B-movie in the past. That said I do enjoy the story about second chances but to get to that point you’d have to go through some pretty rough edges that would make you cringe.

The visual effects are impressive. None of that X-Men Origins: Wolverine catastrophe. ILM delivers the goods again. The look of Worthington as half machine and half human is mindblowing. McG wants us to get to know hydrobots, T-800, the big ol Harvester (the Transformers look-alike). But here’s my problem and I blame it on the fact that they didn’t push for R-rating,… most of those enemies, if you will, aren’t threatening enough. They seem like they have what it takes to get the job done in an instant and yet they’re so easily beatable. There are some cliffhanger moments where there seems to be no way out but then it got resolved too soon, I think it should take the time to keep maintaining the audience on their toes and at the edge of their seats by bombarding one difficulty after another before they meet their end. Like I said, sadly you don’t really get to have that until the very final scene. TERMINATOR SALVATION is another victim of PG-13, it could be so much more but it chooses not to be and we’re forced to sit through the ordeal.

Sam Worthington is decent as Marcus Wright, a death row prisoner from the past who’s awake only to find that the world he knew was destroyed by Judgment Day and he’s not the same man. The Australian actor indeed has the potential of a rising star but TERMINATOR SALVATION is not a good enough gig for him to prove himself. I have no objection to Christian Bale’s portrayal of adult John Connor. Everyone knows Bale is the kind of actor who takes things too seriously and it shows on the screen. But his commitment does pay off, John Connor isn’t sure what or who to believe, still clings to his mother’s old recording for advice but he knows what he must do to make sure things happen the way they should, you witness the becoming of his leadership.

I’m beginning to think DP Shane Hurlbut who got yelled at by angry Christian Bale during production, did deserve it because his cinematography work with Michael Fitzgerald for TERMINATOR SALVATION doesn’t quite live up to the expectation and you can’t blame the audience for wanting intensity. Other than the opening scene where John Connor is in the helicopter, struggling to fly the damn thing, the rest of the movie, for the most part, seems so average, like a typical action movie and that’s that. It doesn’t do enough to involve us. They should learn from DP Salvatore Totino who worked on Angels & Demons.

Once again, McG puts too much emphasis on trying to remind us of certain lines or certain mannerism previously depicted in the first three Terminator movies. He even includes death by molten steel. His direction is the kind that has easily been done by other filmmakers. The romance between Blair Williams and Marcus that happens so quickly, a man’s angry and he throws an object into the wall of glass, he’d settle for napalm and explosives instead of showing us some other way we’ve never seen before. However, the cameo by Arnold’s virtual face is a good tease.

When Marcus fights the machine in the water, the first thing that comes to mind is an Australian wrestling a crocodile ala Steve Irwin. I don’t know who came up with the storyboard but the scene where the humans all lined up and there are machines guarding the place while flame and fireball are spewing from everywhere, the whole setting for some reason looks like they’re in some kind of heavy metal concert.

TERMINATOR SALVATION is supposed to be more exhilarating than this, but unfortunately it’s like someone who’s trying to reach that branch on the cliff so he could pull himself up, but his hands just couldn’t quite get there.