Terminator: Salvation
Matthew Rodgers
Recent attempts to expand a universe so brilliantly created by James “King of the World” Cameron in 1984 have ended with decidedly mixed results. Some might argue that they would send a Schwarzenegger model T-800 to terminate those that greenlit the much maligned Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and the recently cancelled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
So it appears that the titular “Salavation” not only applies to the franchise itself, or our post Judgement Day protagonists, and maybe has the most relevance with the director of such cinematic highs as Charlie’s Angels 1 & 2 and direct-to-dvd American football dud, We Are Marshall. Stop sniggering at the back, you haven’t heard his name yet, McG!!
For the first time the narrative is placed in the ash scorned scenario of the future. All bar a pre-credit sequence featuring enigmatic anti-hero, Marcus (Sam Worthington) being prepped for his final hours on death row. The action then switches to 2018 and a battle ground on which John Connor (Christian Bale) leads the human resistance in a war against the machines. The appearance of Marcus, bereft of memory or self-awareness leads Connor to question his motivations as Skynet prepares its final onslaught on the remnants of mankind.
Terminator: Salvation is as surprisingly exhilarating as it is bone-crushingly disappointing, none-the-less it remains a recommendation for franchise fans and action junkies seeking a fix during the summer months.
The first of many problems is that whilst the audience is presented with recognisable names from the saga’s mythos; Connor (Linda Hamilton even makes an audio cameo), Reese, and a triumphant CGI return to the franchise from its most iconic “governating” face, it never really feels like a Terminator movie.
McG takes the film, visually and structurally in a completely different direction from the original trilogy (and yes, I will class it as that you Rise of the Machine haters out there!), which were simply chase movies on an ever-increasing scale. Don’t expect the intimately hellish vision of conflict aftermath glimpsed in Cameron’s futurescapes, McG gives proceedings a filtered, gulf war style visual palette, that admittedly impresses to the point that you can taste the grit in your mouth, but it isn’t a patch on the laser dominated dystopia that was promised.
More praiseworthy is the decision to drop the pursuit aspect from the narrative so we don’t have to suffer another “Termanatrix” mis-step. Salvation is a fractured story of survivors coming together, it shares many similarities with Lord of the Rings, heck, even Skynet’s base has an eerie Moordor feel to it.
Performances are fine; Worthington gets a large chunk of the screen-time, which despite the odd wobble into his native Aussie tongue he utilises well enough as the stoic hero, and the odd perplexed look makes up for the lack of decent dialogue for the conflicted Marcus. Bale does nothing as impressive as the infamous on-set rant but is more prominent than his bit-part rumour suggested. He is however an improvement on the “man you’d follow into battle” after the whiny incarnations given by Furlong (T2), and Stahl (T3) that made you wonder if it was worth saving this guy after all?
Being a “boys own” movie it’s no surprise that Moon Bloodgood (rushed) and Bryce Dallas-Howard (narrative plot device) get short thrift on the acting and action front.
Sifting through post-apocalyptic debris and shattered endoskeletons, the films real find is fresh from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, and that’s Anton Yelchin as the young Kyle Reese (formerly genre favourite Michael Biehn). He is the only performer that creates a believable link to the origins of his character, and provides a level of realism and humanity amongst the shouty macho posturing.
Realism, loosely speaking for a film about killer robots, goes out of the window within the opening twenty minutes, something of a pre-requisite when this franchise has moved from Cult Classic to Tentpole Summer Event movie. Since when could any form of this unrepentant, relentless machine be defeated by simply chucking a crowbar at them? McG has the answer and it’s the stuff of Transformers, not a bad thing by any means, just not something that belongs in this filmic universe please.
Even though it isn’t the story we all wanted and something of a pre-cursor to the “great war” hinted at so tantalisingly all them years ago, there are still a few neat touches to admire; the use of Guns ‘n’ Roses on the soundtrack, the unavoidable but borderline cheddarness of Bale uttering “I’ll be back”, and the fantastic reveal of how Connor got his scar. The problem is, and no matter how much you despise the Elton John glasses and “talk to the hand” buffoonery of T3, there isn’t one moment in the whole of Salvation that matches that films depressing denouement.
And final mention must go to Danny Elfman whose score seems to be recycled from the ill-fitting Spider-Man series to such awful effect that it loses the film a star. The signature themes of the franchise are given the briefest of cameos before being trumped by an orchestral onslaught that can only be described as “noise”.
There is some intrigue in the “what is Marcus?” dilemma at the core of the movie, but only a limited amount. What is does have is some of the most expertly handled and under-edited (take note Michael Bay) action sequences this side of summer, but shouldn’t we expect more than that from The Terminator?
