The Terminator franchise has always been an interesting one. The plots never made too much sense and they were very action heavy, yet the first two received much acclaim and are even considered classics despite this, whereas other such films usually get shunned.  Even Terminator 3 received a mostly positive reception. But how well does Terminator Salvation live up to the Terminator name? Especially with the absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Terminator Salvation breaks the series convention of having a Terminator come back in time to kill John Conner before he can become the “leader of the human resistance against Skynet” and instead takes place in the future with the humans fighting against the machines. Now the strange thing is John Conner isn’t the leader of the resistance like all the other films said he would be, but instead is referred to as some kind of “chosen one” with no real explanation why he is considered as such. I mean, did the time traveling Terminators of the previous films somehow change something? And how exactly did he become prophesied as a chosen one when only he and his mother really knew he was going to be the leader of the resistance?

On the other side of the story is a character named Marcus Wright (possible name combination of Marcus Phoenix and Phoenix Wright? The evidence is there.). Marcus Wright was a man who through some unexplained circumstances accidentally (at least I assume it’s accidentally, they never give any details) killed his own brother and two cops. Now with how it’s “explained” I guess we are to assume that Marcus Wright was merely a victim of unfortunate circumstances as apposed to a cold-blooded killer, but the movie never bothers to give us the details.

Anyway, apparently Marcus Wright was put on death row for his crimes in 2003 (which I guess is probably a reference to Terminator 3’s year of release, I don’t know). But just before his execution he signs a contract of sorts with Cyberdyne to donate his body for “research.” Now of course anyone will probably instantly know what that means (especially since the trailers so blatantly gave it away)….Marcus Wright becomes a half-human, half-Terminator. I know normally this would count as a spoiler, but like I said, it’s not like the movie tried to keep this a secret of any kind.

Now of course John Conner and Marcus Wright eventually cross paths, join forces, yadda yadda yadda. You instantly know where the movie is going.

Now as for the plot itself…well…There isn’t much plot at all, and the plot that is there is completely muddled by all the nonsensical time travel stuff of the Terminator films (it seriously makes no sense whatsoever). The “plot” pretty much reads as follows: Humans fight machines. Humans have a chance to destroy Cyberdyne central. Machines take human prisoners (for reasons unexplained). Yeah well there you go.

And as for the time travel…Oh don’t even bother thinking about it. Unlike Star Trek where the time travel concept makes sense, ther is nothing even coherent with how Terminator’s time travel works. One of the “human prisoners” is Kyle Reese, who if you remember was the hero of the first Terminator (and for some reason I kept expecting him to say something about an “enemy wessel”). Of course John Conner (who is an adult) must rescue Kyle Reese (who is a teenager) because Kyle Reese is destined to eventually go back in time and become John Conner’s father. Don’t even try to grasp that, there is no way that could ever make sense. At least Prisoner of Azkaban (which also had nonsensical time travel) could at least make a bit of sense if it had happened before…but differently.

Now empty plot-lines and dumbfounding time travel aside, the action in Terminator is at least good. The movie doesn’t really let up on the action (probably at the expense of storyline unfortunately). I mean there on some moments when the action becomes a bit outlandish is a X-men Origins: Wolverine kind of way (maybe even more ridiculous still), but for the most part the action is fun and exciting to watch.

All in all, Terminator Salvation could have been done a lot better, There is virtually no plot, some characters are only momentarily important and then fall into obscurity, there is an extreme lack of any actual Terminators (seriously the movie takes place during the so called “war between man and machine” yet we only see like two Terminators in the whole thing), and the Absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger really removes a lot of the feel of a Terminator film. But at the same time, it could have been worse, Christian Bale as John Conner is cool (that guy instantly makes movies cooler) and it has good action sequences. Terminator Salvation definitely won’t be considered a classic like the first two Terminator movies, but if you may want to see it if you are a fan of the franchise or just want to see some mindless action and don’t mind receiving headaches from all that time travel mumbo jumbo.

Hasta la vista baby.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 10, rated)

 Loading ...