Movie review - Terminator Salvation

James Cameron's Terminator movie were huge genre and age-defining movies! How many different catchphrases came out of them? Also, you know when you see a red light coming out of a robot's eye that they MUST be evil! Terminator 3 was not so good a movie. So is Terminator Salvation up there with 1 & 2 or 3? Well, I find that this can be answered by three questions. Do you like explosions and loud noises? Do you like killer robots? Do you like Hollywood explorations of what it means to be human?! If so, then Terminator Salvation is for you!

You'll note I made no comment about plot. To quote Sarah Connor from the original movies, "You could go crazy thinking about this stuff too much." In a nutshell, the film begins in 2003 with Helena Bonham Carter convincing death-row prisoner Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) to donate his body to science. It then cuts to post-Judgment Day 2018 where we see John Connor (Christian Bale) leading some Resistance fighters to some Skynet fortress. When it all goes pear shaped and he ends up being to sole survivor of the attack, he dives off to see the Leaders of the Resistance in their submarine. The leaders tell John Connor that they picked up a Top Five Humans to Kill List from Skynet where number one is Kyle Reese - his father for ppl who don't know Terminator Canon. Meanwhile, who should wake up and emerge from the ruins of said Skynet fortress but...Marcus Wright. And who should he meet on his confused meanderings but...Kyle Reese... and the story writes itself!

If there's one thing that stands out, it is the acting. Christian Bale as Bat...sorry, John Connor is channelling all his Batman angst and, at times, that gravelly voice. Sam Worthington is probably better than Bale - good mix of *WTF am I doing here?* expressiong and lookin' dirty hot. Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese clearly watched a lot of Terminator 1 because sometimes he actually looked like he might grow up to be Michael Biehn! Also, after this movie and Bellatrix Lestrange, Helena Bonham Carter is officially the face and voice of evil. Otherwise, everyone else is kinda second fiddle to the giant killer robots.

So the things I didn't like. My god, that movie was bloody loud. I was wearing jeans and a duffle coat and I could feel them moving with the soundwaves. They are not light fabrics! Also, there's a plot point in the movie where Marcus runs into a female Resistance fighter pilot and the two travel together on foot to meet up with John Connor. He protects her from some potential rapists and she starts falling in lurve with him. Later, *Spoiler* Marcus steps on a land mine and we find out he's actually a robot - noooooooo. She nonetheless decides that she's in love with Marcus, overriding years and years of conditioning whereby robots are out to kill the human race and despite seeing him hanging from chains that reveal his robotic insides. Seeing that bit was kinda gross.*end spoiler.

Anyway, Term Salv is full of exploding fun. The feeling of tension of trying to kill the relentless killing machines before they kill you is definitely back and there's none of the playing for cheap laughs as seen in the third installment. There's lots of nice references to the original movies although really hardcore fans who want the 'future' to be exactly what we saw in the others will probably be disappointed. Just ask that they turn down the volume a bit.
Enjoyable, bring earplugs.
7.5/10