Time: 115 Minutes
Age Rating: M – contains violence
Cast:
Christian Bale as John Connor
Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright
Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese
Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams
Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor
Common as Barnes
Jane Alexander as Virginia
Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Serena Kogan
Director: McG

Although Judgment Day has in fact occurred, the future for which John Connor (Christian Bale) was prepared has been partly altered by the appearance of a stranger named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). Connor must determine if Wright has been rescued from the past, or sent from the future. As the machines prepare for a final battle, Connor and Wright delve deep into Skynet’s heart, uncovering a secret that could lead to the annihilation of mankind.

Following Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the next instalment of the Terminator franchise opted to set the whole film within Judgement Day instead of doing a repeat of the same story from the previous 3 movies. I enjoyed the movie but I do understand the rather mixed reception, it had the potential to be so much better.

As I said, the plot already had one thing going for it, and that’s the fact that its going for a fresh story instead of just doing a repeat of Terminator 2 (which the third movie did). So that’s refreshing and the movie makes some interesting choices. That being said, it could’ve done much more and gone a lot further. The plot is unfortunately pretty conventional and almost on autopilot. There isn’t much emotional depth despite the potential for it. The dialogue is also rough, with the callbacks and voice lines particularly confusing and out of place here.

The movie has some good actors involved but the writing underserves them. Christian Bale plays John Connor and while he’s a great actor and he’s not bad here by any means, this is likely one of his worst performances. John Connor is one of the biggest disappointments of this movie, considering that they had the opportunity to have a movie with him in full human resistance leader mode, but his character is flat and there’s not much to connect with him here. Sam Worthington is the co-lead and fares much better than Bale, if only because he gets to do a lot more and has a lot more going on with him here. The standout actor is Anton Yelchin, who is great as Kyle Reese. Other performances including Bryce Dallas Howard and Common are decent, but their characters are very underdeveloped.

McG is certainly an odd choice for this movie, and there are plenty of other directors who could’ve done better, but his work isn’t bad here. Salvation does well at capturing how dirty and grimy the post apocalypse is, I liked the grey and bleak mad max aesthetic they have going here. The cinematography is effective and the movie is shot well, particularly with the longer takes, and the visual effects are good. The action is solid but is also rather forgettable, even Rise of the Machines managed to have at least one memorable set piece. Considering the tone of the movie, it feels like it really would’ve benefitted from an R rating.

Terminator Salvation wastes a lot of its potential and could’ve been much better, but overall, it is a decent and entertaining action movie with good visual effects, and is a refreshingly different film within the franchise.