Flash Reviews: Terminator Salvation [movies]

Terminator Salvation (2009)
Action/Post Apocalyptic Sci-Fi; USA
115 mins

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Well, at least they didn't do another "they're sending a Terminator back in time to kill someone" plotline. That's just about the only aspect where "Terminator Salvation" defies expectations (unless, of course, you expected it to be good). I don't know why Christian Bale needed to be in this movie. He didn't fit the part, he was totally phoning it in and he wasn't really the main focus of the story anyway. Usually I don't mind him in movies, but he really bugged me here. Sam Worthington was alright, considering what he had to work with and Moon Bloodgood was hot enough to carry me through the second half of the story, but aside from that it just never clicked for me.

There were some cool moments and a few interesting ideas, but the substance just wasn't there. It's hard to put your finger on what it was that was so magical about James Cameron's Terminator movies, but like pornography - you just know it when you see it - or in this case, when you don't see it. The whole thing looked and felt a lot like the game "Fallout 3", which normally would be a good thing, except at all the moments I was supposed to be "wow"ed, it felt like I was watching something I was already very familiar with. And, of course, the trailer didn't help on that front, since just about every cool scene in the movie was shown in the myriad of trailers that preceded the release. And anybody that releases a movie under the alias "McG" and expects me to take him seriously receives automatic douchebag points in my book.

Give this some time if you're into: all things post apocalyptic, lack of character progression, Christian Bale's Batman growl