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Thursday, May 21, 2009
Not enough Salvation for new Terminator movie
Terminator Salvation just isn’t quite … human enough.
That may seem like a strange criticism for a movie with a lot of robots in it, but in the previous Terminator movies, I rooted for the humans - or the robots when they were on the right side. I wanted them to win, even when that seemed impossible.
Watching Terminator Salvation, I only cared about the humans sporadically. Most of them simply aren’t that interesting - not even John Connor. And in a Terminator movie with Christian Bale playing the lead, that’s a problem.
Set in 2018, the film shows the war against the machines is in full swing. Connor is close to finding a way to defeat the enemy Skynet, only to be faced with two problems - people in the resistance who doubt his authority, and the emergence of a mysterious new character, an ex-con named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who harbors a secret even he does not know.
To its great credit, Terminator Salvation is a much better movie than I feared it would be. I never thought I would type these words, but here goes: it’s well-directed by McG.
McG’s gimmicky name cast fear into my heart when I heard he was helming this movie. I still feel the painful aftershocks of one of the worst sequels ever made, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, almost six years after seeing it. But I will give credit where it’s due. McG has redeemed himself.
Not only could I tell what was going on most of the time, but I found most of the action scenes exciting and even imaginative sometimes. Hiring editor Conrad Buff, who also worked on Terminator 2, was a very wise move. As an action movie, Terminator Salvation works well, if not spectacularly.
If only it had a script to match its camerawork, this film might have measured up to the earlier ones. The screenplay was written by John Brancato and Michael Ferris, who also penned Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. (Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote The Dark Knight with brother Christopher, reportedly did an uncredited polish.) Unfortunately, their story focuses too heavily on hardware and not enough on heart. For all of McG’s efforts, Terminator Salvation is mostly soulless.
That’s a shame considering some of the talent involved. Bale does what he can with his role, but John Connor in this movie is the sort of sullen and intense hero he could play in his sleep. Bryce Dallas Howard, a gifted actress, is absolutely wasted in the nothing role of John Connor’s wife, played by Claire Danes last time around. I found myself most intrigued by Worthington’s character and wished he were front and center instead. He almost made me care about the movie, but not quite. (And yes, for the record, I missed Arnold.)
I never imagined that Terminator Salvation would have a lot in common with Angels & Demons, which I reviewed last week, but the films are of a piece. Both are decent action movies I sometimes enjoyed, but ultimately rejected. Unfortunately for Terminator Salvation, the devil in me is on a winning streak.
GRADE: C+
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