Review – Terminator – Salvation

(Disclaimer: If you haven’t seen this movie, there may be information in this review that might be considered a “spoiler” - although I consciously try not to put major spoiler info in my reviews. Proceed with caution.)

I have been awaiting this movie to come out from the very minute I heard that Christian Bale had signed on to play John Connor. For two reasons: 1) I LOVE Christian Bale; and B) I LOVE the Terminator series. Although, as I’m typing this, I’m thinking it’s been a while since I watched the older movies, so I may have to have a Terminator-a-thon this holiday weekend. Hmm… I’ll have to ponder that.

Anyway, the first Terminator was great and I had a thing for Michael Biehn, the guy who come back in time to protect John Connor’s mother and in doing so became John Connor’s father. To see the first movie acted out in 30 seconds by bunnies, click on the link above - it's especially cute where the machine has lost it's flesh, so it's all machine, and it's hopping around with bunny ears! The second movie was good because of course Arnie’s machine was a good guy and the whole interplay between him and the teenage John Connor had some humor in it. That and the machine who melted like Mercury and then reassembled itself was cool! Now, my problems with the third movie are that I don’t remember it very much. I think I've only see it twice … hence the need for the thon this weekend. And the TV series, the Sarah Connor Chronicles has been really good. And this past season’s finale was… oohh!! REALLY good, I'm just crushed that FOX canceled it. :(

So obviously I entered the theater with high hopes. Of course, this was despite my reading a review that called it silly. Now, first the movie is loud. And John Connor doesn't really speak so much as he yells. Although at one point, if you closed your eyes, he sounded like Batman. :)

It starts out in modern day. A prisoner named Marcus Wright (played by Sam Worthington) is being put to death for his crimes and before he gets the lethal injection, Helena Bonham Carter persuades him to sign his body over to science. Then we shift to 2018 and we are in the middle of the war with the machines and John Connor and crew are blowing stuff up, trying to do something... I was vague on that point... and he found humans in a lab. Anyway, those with keen eyes noticed that one of said humans on the slab was Marcus Wright. When the lab blew up, he woke up and escaped and managed to find Kyle Reese (John Connor's father) in the LA arm of the resistance.

Meanwhile, John Connor has been advised that he and Kyle Reese (only John knows why this unknown civilian teenager is on the list) are numbers 2 and 1 on Skynet's hit list. So you know that John Connor and his crew are going to have to cross paths with Marcus and Kyle. Don't want to go into details that will spoil the plot, but it was cool with dad and son (who's probably twice dad's age) meet for the first time!! And a lot of things blow up, and a lot of machines try to kill John and Kyle, and once again I'm reminded why I totally disregard movie reviewers (ironic, since I'm writing one, eh?) because I thought it was great! Odds are I'll see it again, maybe even this weekend! And of course, I'll get the DVD. Two thumbs up! Well, at least one and 1/2 thumbs up! :)

Next up: Well, I'll have to look. I'm not sure what's coming out between now and Harry Potter 6.