| Overall Grade: |
D+ |
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| Story: |
C |
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| Acting: |
B- |
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| Direction: |
D+ |
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| Visuals: |
C |
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This Is Not The Future Sarah Conor Warned Us About
by thROB (movies profile)
May 20, 2009
196
of
359 people found this review helpful
As a fan of the three previous Terminator films, this -- by far -- was the one film I've been eagerly anticipating all year. And having just returned from watching it's opening night showing, my honest opinion of the film is that of disappointment, heartbreak, & mediocrety. Who ever gave the director, "Mc G", the key's to this franchise should be fired immediately! He should've stuck to directing music video's for MTV or Charlie's Angel flicks; the guy just didn't get it. His vision of a post-apocalyptic future was an unimaginative disappointment! Honestly, I think the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon could've done a better job because this movie was so tame that it was almost completely reduced to a family film. I think they tried too hard to squeeze too much into a script that should've been a bit more raw and adult theme in nature.
I'll start with the acting. Christian Bale (John Connor) & Sam Worthington (Marcus) both were the driving force behind Terminator Salvation. You couldn't have cast better actors for this film. Their performances were the only highlight in a film where the supporting cast that seemed either out of place (political correctness) or too polished. For example, the women in the film all looks as if they had just stepped out of a beauty salon. If you're constantly being hunted for extermination and trying to survive then why do these women (particularly Connor's wife & Marcus' love interest), seem to have spent 4 hours every morning getting their hair, nails, and makeup done (plucked eyebrow and all)? If this is the war torn future, at least attempt to make it more believable! I would expect to see character's with at least some fatigue, battle wounds, or scaring instead of just dirty faces. Overall, it took away some of the films credibility. Kyle Reese's character (Connor's teenage father) looked every bit the part; his resemblance to the original Kyle Reese was shocking. The acting, however, was everything I guess you'd expect from a 16-18 year old but his character, as well as others, lacked the emotional distress, pain/hardship, and mental toughness that one would expect from someone who survived Judgement Day.
Another even bigger problem I had is the overall scale/production. I never got the impression that this was a never ending battle to save all of mankind. Where were all the Terminators? You'd expect SkyNet to be heavily fortified (similar to that of Machine City in 'The Matix'), but most of it's facilities were vast industrial production lines without hardly any defenses. Again, where were all the Terminators? I don't think there were more than 5 or 6 threw out the entire film! And where was the resistance? They seemed as if they were nothing more than a small police SWAT team. Suffice to say, I was expecting something on a more grander scale. In one scene, they even had John Connor's wife (who appears to be almost 8 months pregnant threw out the film) on the battle front risking her life searching for her husband when her pointless presents really wasn't needed! What a failed attempt at trying to develop some chemistry. This was just one example of many misdirected scenes.
Overall, it had it's moments, but the edge of your seat excitement was never there. The special effects really wasn't anything I hadn't seen before (commercials spoiled it) and the CGI I'd compare to Harvey Two-Face Dent's character in The Dark Knight; interpret that how you'd like but I thought it was too animated! Past references to previous Terminator films, specifically T-2, were cleverly written into the script (everything from familiar fight scenes with a T-800, famous one liner's, and even the music) but had it not been for Sam Worthington's character, Marcus, Terminator Salvation doesn't have a whole lot to offer. From a fans perspective, I'd have to rate T-3 as perhaps the worse Terminator film ever made but somehow, this one managed to steal that title. Put it this way, I wouldn't want to see this film again even if it was for free! |
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