Terminator: Salvation

Okay, so I'm catching up on my summer movie going, and first out of the gate is Terminator: Salvation. This is a sharp break from the previous Terminator films, and a lot of critics did not like that one bit.

I, on the other hand, loved it. Apocalyptic films are tricky. The last four to grace my radar: Wall-E, I am Legend, Resident Evil: Extiction, and of course Apocalypto. The set design and photography in T:S takes the Wall-E approach: all that is left in the world is the rusting crap left by a destroyed technical civilization. In mood and props it is closest to The Road Warrior, or the Fallout series of games.

So that's the first break with the first films. This is a fully immersive vision of the future. The second break: John Connor isn't really the main character. Sure, he gets a lot of screen time and dialog, but he is pretty much just reacting to events through the film, rather than driving them. Really, this is the story of Marcus Wright: a death row inmate in the early 2000's who donates his body to Cyberdyne at the insistence of a dying scientist. The choices Marcus makes are the central plot of the film.

The third break is that is really an episode rather than a complete story. In the first Terminator, the story came full circle, and in the second, Sarah and son thought they had stopped Judgement Day. Even the third had all the loose tied up by the end of the movie. T:S, on the other hand, is the story of something that happens within the larger story. These are the early years, where John Conner is moving towards leadership of the resistance but isn't there it. Skynet isn't fully up to speed yet either: the first T-800's are just starting to stalk menacingly off the assembly line. In many ways this is a more personal film simply because it can't yet have the final battle. Of course, in Fellowship of the Ring everyone knew that was the way it was set up, here it was more of a surprise.

So what I liked about T:S was: the inventiveness of the humans, the inventiveness of Skynet, the integration of special effects, and the attention to details of the Terminator universe. The humans don't give up faced with Terminator's, they do what people always do: fight or flight. I especially liked the Kyle Reese approach. What do you fight a Terminator with: anything you've got. Still Skynet was equally on top of things, using it's machines in clever ways and the overall attack plan had even Machivelli in it to garner my attention.

The special effects achieved that place where occasionally you forget it's an effect. Okay, not the giant people snatching robot, but after watching, the smaller things that I thought about and realized had to be special effects just registered as reality at the time, and that's a good thing. Finally, the attention to detail was immaculate. There were callbacks not just to the earlier three Terminator films, but Terminator 2 3D at Universal Studios and the first trailer to Terminator 2. I'm sure I missed many more references, but at least we got to find out how John Connor got that great scar he sported at the beginning of T2. This was a lovingly crafted film.

What I didn't like: the utter seriousness and lack of humor. If they had interjected any emotion other than anger or fear I would have felt more for the protagonist's plight.

This is a solid sci-fi film. Those looking for emotional catharsis should look elsewhere. Those looking for the best depiction yet of a future war between man and machine, this is your film.

Terminator Salvation: 4 out of 5 stars