Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon
Bloodgood, Common (the Rapper), Helena Bonham Carter and Bryce Dallas Howard
The
Plot
Starting
off in 2003 we see Marcus (Sam Worthington) currently imprisoned in Longview
State Correctional Facility, there he is sitting on death row and is convinced
by the prison doctor (who must secretly work for Skynet) to donate his body for
her research. After he agrees to that we jump forward to 2018 where John Connor
(Christian Bale) and his Human resistance have just staged an unsuccessful
attempt on Skynet, Connor is the only survivor and discovers that a new T-800
is being developed, not long after this an Amnesic Marcus wakes up
naked in the middle of nowhere and meets teenager Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin)
before later bumping into Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) who convinces him to
meet with John Connor before heading to Skynet.
The Verdict
For me
Terminator Salvation failed on any level to come up to scratch of its James
Cameron counterparts from 1984 and 1991, the latter 1991’s Terminator 2
stands in any list as one of the best sci-fi movies of all time, changing CGI
in Hollywood to what we expect to see these days, Salvation doesn’t bring
anything new and exciting like that to the table, yes there is lots of CGI used
to good effect but as far as Terminator and its story goes this movie really
done nothing for me. As a stand alone action movie with a name other than
Terminator attached then I think this may well have been better received when
released back in 2009.
If you like action movies then
believe me you will probably enjoy Terminator Salvation, but I would imagine
hard core Terminator fans panned this for ruining their beloved franchise. I
wouldn’t class myself as a hard core fan of the series, yes the movies are
brilliant especially the two mentioned above but I’m not a massive sci-fi fan.
Action is a plenty in this movie and it isn’t let down by its two main cast
members Christian Bale and Sam Worthington, there is no great dialogue between
the pair but in a movie with so many gun battles and explosions you
rconcentration really isn’t on that side of things. What hard core Terminator
fans may have enjoyed (if anything) in this instalment is the amount of
futuristic gadgetry on display courtesy of Skynet, those little motorbike
Terminators provided some excellent chase scenes through the desert, we even
get a guest appearance from a naked Arnold Schwarzenegger (I think this was CGI
though) who has been confined to the Terminator processing plant for this
movie.
I read a
couple of reviews myself once I’d seen the movie and thought I’d put into
this review a question that they posed there, is Terminator Salvation just an
average movie in a franchise which demands greatness? Personally I wouldn’t pass
Salvation off as an average movie, I enjoyed it, there is after all plenty of
action to be had but as far as Terminator movies go I think this would be
better treat as a stand alone summer actioner where director McG gets to blow
up loads of technologically advanced buildings.
All in
all I don’t
think Terminator Salvation was that bad, not great as a Terminator movie
admittedly but good enough to sit an watch with a beer whilst not having to
think to hard about what is going on.
Blu-ray Special Features
Extended Version - Watch the move in it's extended format rather than the theatrical version, you get this option from the main "Play" button and this is the one I watched.
Maximum Movie Mode - Watch the movie hosted by Director MCG via "Walk On" don't ask me what that is I didn't watch it.
Chat iQ - Watch the movie whilst attached to a social network with a whole load of other people from around the world, you can comment at any point and people can reply.
Reforging The Future - This is an extra which has hidden extras inside, a nice little look at how the idea was thought of, how much work went into thinking of how the Terminators would look. Some great interviews including that of Christian Bale who I'm really not all that crazy on. This wasn't the best Terminator movie made of course but when you see this you see that was not what they were trying to do, their idea was to start a whole new story and they done a pretty good job with that.
THE MOTO TERMINATOR - A look at how the motorbike Terminators were designed, they were pretty cool in the movie and that coolness continued into the extras.
FOCUS POINTS - A great one for super massive movie geeks, you can watch a whole array of extras here. I'm not even going to mention them, why? Well, if I got the comments to warrant it or maybe the movie was a little better then I may have been more interested.
TRAILERS - You know this one by now, all the theatrical trailers which were released for the movie plus some trailers from the company who released the Blu-ray. Again, I didn't watch it, saw the movie that was enough really.
Extended Version - Watch the move in it's extended format rather than the theatrical version, you get this option from the main "Play" button and this is the one I watched.
Maximum Movie Mode - Watch the movie hosted by Director MCG via "Walk On" don't ask me what that is I didn't watch it.
Chat iQ - Watch the movie whilst attached to a social network with a whole load of other people from around the world, you can comment at any point and people can reply.
Reforging The Future - This is an extra which has hidden extras inside, a nice little look at how the idea was thought of, how much work went into thinking of how the Terminators would look. Some great interviews including that of Christian Bale who I'm really not all that crazy on. This wasn't the best Terminator movie made of course but when you see this you see that was not what they were trying to do, their idea was to start a whole new story and they done a pretty good job with that.
THE MOTO TERMINATOR - A look at how the motorbike Terminators were designed, they were pretty cool in the movie and that coolness continued into the extras.
FOCUS POINTS - A great one for super massive movie geeks, you can watch a whole array of extras here. I'm not even going to mention them, why? Well, if I got the comments to warrant it or maybe the movie was a little better then I may have been more interested.
TRAILERS - You know this one by now, all the theatrical trailers which were released for the movie plus some trailers from the company who released the Blu-ray. Again, I didn't watch it, saw the movie that was enough really.
Would
I watch it again?
I really
haven’t
decided yet, I suppose an extra viewing before the release of Terminator 5
(whenever that is) would probably be quite handy as you could re-cap where they
left things off in the fourth movie. That’s how good it was I don’t remember.
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