Terminator Salvation

Remember that line in Jurassic Park uttered by Jeff Goldblum about scientists being "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."? I always find it blackly amusing that the writers of such cautionary dialogue work for an industry which functions in exactly the opposite fashion. Remember back around 1996 or so when Lucasfilm thought aloud: wow, special effects have come so far so fast in only a dozen years that we can finally make all new Star Wars movies the way we wanted to the first time!?

Yeah, I think we all know full well how that little plan turned out.

It seems like this same kind of thinking also applies to Terminator movies, which is kind of ironic in that Terminator 2: Judgment Day (still far and away the best of the series) was the incredible technical achievement that nearly singlehandedly kicked off the modern age of digital special effects. While this leap forward in technology has admittedly resulted in some truly amazing spectacles (like, say, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park), it has also presaged a whole new generation's worth of action sequences so inhumanly surgical and antiseptic in nature that they carry all the dramatic weight of a Mortal Kombat match.

In the wake of The Rise Of The Machines (the awful third film in the Terminator franchise), I felt insulted that the first two films somehow weren't enough for Hollywood and that trying to go beyond that seamless basic story was not only pointless and a blatant exercise in derivative greed, but would only lessen the impact of the originals (see also: the entire Star Wars prequel trilogy, Alien3, et al.). Unfortunately, Terminator Salvation, while certainly far superior to The Rise Of The Machines (I believe this is what is referred to as "damning with faint praise"), fails in the end to alter my opinion one bit.

Perhaps the most clinically interesting aspect of Terminator Salvation is that this movie is, in essence, a high speed mash-up of a dozen different science fiction movies. You can almost make a parlor game of calling out the influences for each scene and plot development as they come along. Director McG isn't so much a "director" in this project as a DJ, and this movie is a peak hour set of old classics reconstituted, remixed, re-arranged and played back at high volume. Bits of exposition, revelation and visual reference lifted from old science-fiction chestnuts are everywhere: Return Of The Jedi, The Road Warrior, The Matrix, Aliens, A.I., The Phantom Menace (uh oh), Blade Runner, War Of The Worlds, and, uh, Body Parts.

There isn't a whole lot I can tell you of the plot, but then again the foreshadowing is so heavy-handed in the exposition that even a third-grader can figure out the "central plot twist" to this movie. Let's just say that after a big (and costly) break in intelligence-gathering operations, John Connor (a quite frankly wasted performance by Christian Bale) and the human resistance are preparing to deal a devastating blow to the central hub of Skynet, though it also appears that the machines are also ready to hit first by targeting Connor and his unwitting father, Kyle Reese (and if you don't know how Reese can be Connor's unwitting parent, then you really must be terribly bored right now to be reading all of this).

Much like other recent franchise reboots, Terminator Salvation attempts to blaze a path to fanboy redemption by repeatedly paying homage to the original films: numerous shots, sequences, lines of dialogue and visual references pepper this new film, constantly attempting to create threads and associations to the Cameron films. Many of these nods elicit a knowing chuckle or a nod of approval, others become heavy handed to the point of distraction. Also like any good reboot, this new movie wisely forgets the previous chapter ever happened: the sole connection here to The Rise Of The Machines lies in the character of Kate Connor (whom we last met as a veterinarian played by Claire Danes).

As always, I try to not let plot holes and unexplained happenings bother me too much in films like these, though there are always a few bits that manage to penetrate my suspension of disbelief. Without going into spoilers, I'll list a few below:

1. Considering the fact that it possesses the sum total of all military and artificial intelligence prior to the point of its creation, are you telling me that Skynet never heard of or manufactured a Magnetic Anomaly Detector?

2. Do waterbots (or whatever the hell those things I saw in The Matrix a decade ago are now called) not work in the open ocean?

3. As with many similar-scaled baddies in movies like these, eighty foot tall headless robots have the disconcerting ability to noiselessly tip-toe up on one-story buildings while undetected by anyone inside.

4. Bad news for future dentists and dermatologists: everyone in the post-apocalyptic future has absolutely perfect skin and blindingly white (and straight) teeth. This actually becomes pretty distracting at times when things are supposed to be pretty intense and dramatic.

5. I sure hope anti-rejection medication is still plentiful in the post-apocalyptic wasteland.

6. At a few different points in this movie, I started to think about the beliefs and performances of the principals in the first two Terminator movies. After watching this film (and assuming it is to be accepted as canon), some questions can now be raised about why certain characters behaved the way they do in the first two movies considering what happens in this one.

7. I have had just about enough of this modern school of digitally-edited action film in which everything happens at the very last microsecond before disaster can strike. Sure, it was really cool about 15 or 20 years ago when people in movies first ducked just out of the way of airborne cars, or hit the dirt just as something huge explodes behind them, but enough already. It's time to find a new paradigm here, action directors ... I have definitely "been there and done that" as far as these sequences are concerned.

8. There is a rather glaring continuity error set up by this movie dealing with a brand new series of Terminator met by a handful of the main characters during the Skynet Central sequence (this error only becomes apparent if you remember Reese's dialogue from the first Terminator movie). I stumbled across this error hours afterward while editing this review, and I'll let y'all figure this one out for yourselves if you can.

Look, I'll be honest here and admit that I was diverted and amused for the movie's two hour running time. But let's call a spade a spade: Terminator Salvation is really just another in an endless stream of those factory-made summer blockbuster roller coaster rides: a lot of fun and thrills while it's going on, but ultimately pretty silly once you get your wits about you as the final credits roll. As long as you're cool with that, you'll have a fine old time.

Terminator Salvation rating: 3/5