Terminator-a-Thon, Part 4 - Terminator: Salvation (2009)

Director: McG

Cast: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard

Country: United States

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 117 minutes

Terminator: Salvation is a breath of fresh air after the dismal and uninspired Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. McG (Charlie's Angels), the most unlikely of directors, and the exact same screenwriters of Terminator 3 (!), steered the franchise back on the course towards greatness with this bleak and well shot post-apocalyptic actioner that puts every frame of T3 to shame. Many fans took issue with Salvation upon its initial release because it committed two cardinal sins against its franchise: no Arnold and no R rating. The no Arnold issue is excusable, as the man was still in politics at the time of the film's production and release. As for the PG-13 rating, that decision was clearly made in order to ensure higher box office receipts as many summer blockbusters do nowadays.

However, I believe that Terminator: Salvation is still a gritty and impressive sci-fi actioner that kicks more ass than T3 even with a PG-13 rating. There is also an R rated director's cut that restores a few shots of violence and an unnecessary shot of breasts, so PG-13 naysayers can turn towards that for their R rated satisfaction. Whether you watch the PG-13 theatrical cut or the R rated director's cut, Terminator: Salvation still proves to be a worthy sequel to the likes of T1 and T2 even without Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron's involvement. It's not a great science fiction film to say the least, nor an amazing post-apocalyptic film, but at least it's a well made one that restores the bleakness to the Terminator genre and honors the themes and practicality of Cameron's masterful entries.

Christian Bale shoots down Terminator: Salvation's naysayers.

Terminator: Salvation opens in 2003 (the year Judgment Day occurred at the end of T3) as a death row inmate, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), signs his body to CyberDyne systems after his eventual execution. The film than jumps forward to 2018, a time early in the years of the war against the machines, as John Connor (Christian Bale) and the Resistance raid a SkyNet site filled with human prisoners. As John Connor escapes, a nuclear explosion levels the site, leaving behind a reawakened Marcus Wright unharmed and surprised to be alive. Terminator: Salvation splits off into two dual narratives from here that run into one another and occasionally cross paths until their eventual collision in the film's finale. One concerns John's struggle to destroy SkyNet while the other concerns Marcus' search for the truth about himself and his journey with a young Kyle Reese. Salvation suffers from a misguided and overly complicated plot that is nowhere near as simple and direct as the basic chase plots found within T1 and T2.

Even though Terminator: Salvation's plot is overly complicated, I praise its screenwriters for finally taking the Terminator franchise in a new direction. T2 may be a copy cat of T1, but at least it was drastically different in both tone and budget. T3 on the other hand was merely a cheap copy cat of T2 with no freshness or originality in its bones. Therefore, I applaud Terminator: Salvation for being the first film within the Terminator franchise to try something new. The audience doesn't have to sit through another time travel / chase film for the first time within the series.

Salvation is a bleak and dark post-apocalyptic film more in tone with the original Terminator film than T2 or T3. It still relies upon big and bombastic set pieces, but at least the film understands that the Terminator series needs to have a sense of danger and impending doom to it in order for it to be affective. The film completely avoids the pitfalls of Terminator 3 by ditching all attempts at cheap humor too. Salvation is a rare summer blockbuster that is extremely bleak and dark in nature, even darker than Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The 'man in a suit' T-600 trumps down a destroyed street.

It is clear from the opening action set piece that Terminator: Salvation is immediately better than Terminator 3 based purely on its score by Danny Elfman and is cinematography by Shane Hurlbut. Salvation is a beautifully shot and lit film, shrouded in dark greys and blacks in order to convey the sad nature of its post-apocalyptic future. Salvation also benefits from a helping heaping of tracking shots that make its action scenes all the more realistic and intense. The opening tracking shot in which John Connor hops into a helicopter, takes off, crashes to the ground, and than rolls out only to stare at a huge mushroom cloud where his fellow soldiers stood is infinitely more artistic than every set piece of Terminator 3. Elfman's score is also a welcome tribute to Brad Fiedel's iconic music from the first two Terminator films.

McG's Terminator film also has a fantastic blend of practical and computer generated effects. It's quite hard to tell at times when a Terminator is real or not. McG clearly took a page out of the James Cameron / Stan Winston hand book on how to make a science fiction film with convincing special effects. Stan Winston Studios and Industrial Light and Magic created several new robots for the film that honor the late Winston himself. We are treated to aquatic Terminators, motorcycle Terminators, primitive T-600's, and even giant Harvester robots as well. For being the first Terminator film without Stan Winston's handiwork, Salvation impresses with all of its animatronics, and even its computer generated effects.

McG clearly loves Cameron's original two Terminator films and homages them every chance that he gets. Salvation does a great job reincorporating iconic dialog from the franchise in a new and fresh way. When Connor walks away from his wife Kate towards the film's end, she asks him what to say to his men when they ask where he's gone. Connor turns around and calmly replies, "I'll be back." Perfect! We are also treated to the great, "Come with me if you want to live," by none other than a young Kyle Reese.

A young Kyle Reese proves his future worth.

The film also contains numerous specific references to T1 and T2. For example, John Connor still listens to the same old Guns N Roses song, "You Could Be Mine", even in 2018. We also get to see the first T-800 be created in a SkyNet factory and go on to give John Connor his facial scar. The cameo by a computer generated Arnold Schwarzenegger looks especially impressive too. McG does a great job obscuring its face as much as possible so as to never let the audience experience a bad case of uncanny valley. My favorite reference to the previous films is actually the final line of the film by John, "There is no fate but what we make." This is a nice slap in the face to Terminator 3's condescending "Judgment Day is inevitable" mentality and proof that the screenwriters either learned their mistakes from Terminator 3 or that Jonathan Nolan and Paul Haggis' uncredited work on the script is the reason for this revision.

Christian Bale (Equilibrium, The Dark Knight) makes for a fantastic John Connor. When I see Bale with short hair, a gun, and a resistance uniform on, I see the savior of the future that I have always waited for. It's hard to believe this same character was played by Nick Stahl of all people in the previous film, but it's true. Unfortunately, the film seems far more interested in the character of Marcus Wright, portrayed by Sam Worthington (Clash of the Titans, Avatar), as opposed to the supposed lead of the film. I would have preferred an entire Terminator film with Bale in the lead and not relegated to co-lead with Worthington. Worthington is a fine actor, but it's ridiculous that his newly created character gets far more screen time than John Connor, the character we have heard more about than any other character in the entire Terminator franchise. Salvation would have benefited from stronger and tighter character work, backed by explicit arcs and a defined protagonist. You know Salvation's character work is weak when you hold it up to Terminator 2 and see how overwhelming emotional each character arc was in that film.

Besides its overly complicated plot and weak character work, Salvation suffers from a plot hole that nearly breaks the film in two during its finale. After Marcus sneaks into SkyNet and plugs into their database, we finally learn why SkyNet turned Marcus' deceased body into a cyborg. Their plan was to revive Marcus, and than let him wander the wasteland until he stumbled upon both Kyle Reese and John Connor. He was than to befriend them and lead them to SkyNet so that SkyNet could kill them using a sole T-800. There are so many problems with this plan that it hurts my head. What if Marcus never found Kyle Reese? How would he have eventually met John Connor? Second, why does SkyNet intend to use only one Terminator against John when they could send 1000 against him? Why not bomb SkyNet themselves once he arrives? Also, why the hell would SkyNet explain their entire plan to Marcus once they got what they needed from him? Their explanation of their plan motivates him to go save John and essentially destroy SkyNet's main headquarters! This plot hole is so big that it hurts my head.

Hey, Arnold's looking pretty good if you ask me.

McG's Terminator: Salvation is a commendable entry in the franchise. It's just a shame that the film is a case of style over substance. From a technical standpoint, Terminator: Salvation is superb. The film features incredible stunt work, awesome special effects, and gritty art direction that captures the bleak future hinted at in Cameron's original Terminator. Whenever I think about Salvation's gripping photography and awe inspiring imagery, I can't help but praise the hell out of the film. However, I have to constantly remind myself that Salvation's substance is what prevents the film from being as great as Cameron's originals. The plot of the film makes almost no sense until the very end in which everything is explained and deciphered by Helena Bonham Carter in a wasted cameo. Salvation also suffers from poorly written characters who grow in no way, despite their bad ass portrayals by action gurus Christian Bale and Sam Worthington. 

I think that Terminator: Salvation is a good action film, warts and all. If I had to compare it to any other action film out there, I would put in on the same level as Nimrod Antal's Predators. Both sequels are well shot and beautifully designed films that falter from weak plots and characters that don't engage the audience as well as their predecessors. Whereas Predators was a breath of fresh air to the Predator franchise after crap like Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, Terminator: Salvation was a breath of fresh air to the Terminator franchise after crap like Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It's clear that contemporary filmmakers like Nimrod Antal and McG can't make films as good as master filmmakers like John McTiernan and James Cameron. However, their good intentions and solid franchise entries are to be commended flaws and all. Therefore, I recommend McG's Terminator: Salvation on the basis that its gorgeous art direction and technical merits will captivate fans of its franchise even if its narrative meat lacks the juiciness of Cameron's originals.

Rating: 7/10 - A flawed but gritty sequel that tries something different in a franchise built around doing the same old thing.

Franchise:

The Terminator (dir. James Cameron, 1984)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (dir. James Cameron, 1991)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (dir. Jonathan Mostow, 2003)

Terminator: Salvation (dir. McG, 2009)

Terminator: Genisys (dir. Alan Taylor, 2015)