"We will not rest until all of it is destroyed."
The main reason that Terminator 3 and 4 (and to a degree the spin-off TV show) have been treated with generally flippant disregard is that they dared to exist without James Cameron at the helm. Rise Of The Machines did suffer by offering little that was new, in spite of some excellent lead performances (by the human characters rather than the Terminators) and its extraordinary nihilistic ending. Salvation, however, does offer a lot of new angles on the mythology, and the film impresses with interesting camerawork and surprisingly fluid direction by McG. The main difficulty that the movie has overall is that the set pieces work very well and are often truly spectacular, but the movie fails to hang together, coming across as too episodic to give it any real momentum towards a truly gripping climax that the film needed. Christian Bale provides a more militaristic take on John Connor, and whilst Bale is always credible and value-for-money, here he merely swings between growling and shouting. Sam Worthington proves to be the find here, although it is a great shame that his character's big narrative twist was given away in the trailer, as the element of surprise would have proved much more rewarding to the viewer (even though it is so very clearly signposted throughout). It was a bold move to bring the future action into daylight for the most part, and it gives the film a credible post-apocalypse setting. Although it pays lip-service to Cameron's 'philosophical' ideas that gave the first two movies their relative depth, as a summer blockbuster, Terminator Salvation is more than just big bangs and big robots (take note, Michael Bay). It looks as if Lionsgate has won the bidding war for the Terminator franchise - someone is probably writing Terminator vs Jigsaw right now - so it will be interesting to see if they do continue with McG's proposed trilogy.
The main reason that Terminator 3 and 4 (and to a degree the spin-off TV show) have been treated with generally flippant disregard is that they dared to exist without James Cameron at the helm. Rise Of The Machines did suffer by offering little that was new, in spite of some excellent lead performances (by the human characters rather than the Terminators) and its extraordinary nihilistic ending. Salvation, however, does offer a lot of new angles on the mythology, and the film impresses with interesting camerawork and surprisingly fluid direction by McG. The main difficulty that the movie has overall is that the set pieces work very well and are often truly spectacular, but the movie fails to hang together, coming across as too episodic to give it any real momentum towards a truly gripping climax that the film needed. Christian Bale provides a more militaristic take on John Connor, and whilst Bale is always credible and value-for-money, here he merely swings between growling and shouting. Sam Worthington proves to be the find here, although it is a great shame that his character's big narrative twist was given away in the trailer, as the element of surprise would have proved much more rewarding to the viewer (even though it is so very clearly signposted throughout). It was a bold move to bring the future action into daylight for the most part, and it gives the film a credible post-apocalypse setting. Although it pays lip-service to Cameron's 'philosophical' ideas that gave the first two movies their relative depth, as a summer blockbuster, Terminator Salvation is more than just big bangs and big robots (take note, Michael Bay). It looks as if Lionsgate has won the bidding war for the Terminator franchise - someone is probably writing Terminator vs Jigsaw right now - so it will be interesting to see if they do continue with McG's proposed trilogy.
4 comments:
Your review is yet another good one with valid points about the action scenes and definately the acting!
I found Bale's performance mundane and careless. if he had been placed next to some one with a little less talent than worthington, maybe his performance may have been cloaked, however it was'nt.
McG did suprise me with this. I guess i was expecting some slow motion "Full throttle" action to take place :)
Big bangs and Robots... Michael Bay? i have no idea what you mean! :)
It will be interesting to see if Christian Bale can break out of this cycle of serious mumbling character interpretations to show what he is really capable of again.....
i miss the days of bale at his best. Films like American Psycho, 3:10 to Yuma, The Machinist, even little women!!!!
Lets hope David O. Russell's new film "The Fighter" will be better, have you seen the cast! pretty impressive.
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