Salvation Denied

Watched 'Terminator Salvation' already?

Bottomline: much better than Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines but still not as good as Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

I think people will like this film depending on what they are looking for. If you came for the action sequences to match any Michael Bay or Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, then this movie is right up your alley. It’s an action-vaganza of giant Terminators-that-shoots-out-smaller-Terminators smashing and exploding things all over the place, aerial dogfights ala Independence Day (Will Smith’s F-18 Hornet with an alien jet engaging each other in a canyon), bullets flying left and right and any direction physically possible, it’s all here in this 2 hour plus teenage fanboy’s greatest celluloid wet dream.

Unfortunately, if you came for fresh insight into the already-oh-so-tiring John Connor saviour-of-the-world and how he morphed from typical teenage John Connor to motherfucker radio-screaming-“WE ARE ALL DEAD!!!” John Connor, then be prepared to be disappointed. No new revelations are offered for this already exhausting story arc, as the only conclusion I can make to how he became the way he is, is a logic-defying loop where he just became a motherfucking John Connor. The actual story here is mainly on Marcus Wright, played with convincing badass-dry by Sam Worthington, and his journey of defying what it means to be a “man” out of a machine (you’ll know what I’m talking about when you watch this movie).

As for my opinion, the trailers kicked-ass, the momentum of excitement was all there leading to the launch of the movie, the premise of a post-Judgment Day movie was promising. But in the end, it just did not meet expectations. Maybe my expectations were too high, or the benchmark set my James Cameron in the previous Terminators was too monumental. But whatever the reason, the first two Terminator films remain as the un-paralleled classics and thus far, we still remain in wait for a Terminator movie to match the originals.

Nice try, but no cigar McG…

Reviewed by: Raymond Choy

Verdict: 7 / 10