I love summer movies

Terminator Salvation

I saw this the same day I saw Angels and Demons - big movie day for me.

Terminator movies have scared me for pretty much my whole life. I remember watching the first ones and hiding behind the sofa cushions. I did go see the last one, T3 or whatever it was called and thought it was eh. I'm a big believer in Christian Bale so I had high hopes for this one.

I don't think it delivered. I mean, yeah, I was scared. I bit off all my nails before the movie was half over but still.

Basic plot: John Conner is trying to take down Skynet; Skynet is trying to kill all those pesky humans. Nothing new there. Conner is also searching for Kyle Reese, the teenager who needs to get back to the past and get with Conner's mom so John Conner can exist. Side note - have I mentioned before how much I love time travel? I do, a lot. Anyway, also in play is this guy Marcus, who is executed on death row in modern times and wakes up in future L.A.

But I don't know that I saw anything new. John Conner's running around trying to kill all the machines and have meaningful moments with his preggers wife in a future where California is pretty much a barren wasteland. The machines are cool, but nothing is as scary as the T-100 from Terminator 2. The big machines that captured people reminded me too much of the alien ships from War of the Worlds. The really big guy's face also looked like one of the clones from the Star Wars movies.

And I have an issue with the Marcus premise. I don't know how much of a spoiler this is because it seemed obvious to me but maybe it isn't and you don't want to read the rest of this if you haven't seen it. - Anyway, with Marcus we learn that Skynet is building machines (or for now a machine) that are part human and think that they are human. I felt like they wanted this to be shocking and emotional, but frankly I've read way too many Philip K. Dick short stories for this to be a surprise. It was like reading the Second Variety, only with a happier conclusion.

Bale talked in Batman voice for a lot of the movie. I know he can sound different, why, why is Batman yelling in this movie? And seriously, he just walks into Skynet and they only send ONE terminator after him? Come on Skynet - it's like you're not even trying.

I said above that I love time travel in movies and books and just in general. It was surprisingly absent from this movie! I mean, you could argue that Marcus travels forward in time, but that's not cutting it for me. Pretty disappointed in that.

Shout out to Anton Yelchin who plays Kyle Reese and also is Chekov in Star Trek. I was actually really surprised with how different he was from each character. Reese was the one character in this movie that I was mildly interested in.

Looks like McG (who I still can't help but connect with the O.C.) is geared up to do at least two more of these suckers. How about spending some time on some character development next time dude?

In the end, this movie was predictable and I didn't care too much for any of the characters. Well, I care about the characters, but only the ones from previous movies. What they do in this movies doesn't endear them to me that much. Except for cutie Reese.


Summer blockbuster movie ranking so far:

Star Trek (by a lot)

Terminator Salvation

Angels and Demons


Oh, and I got really excited because I saw the preview for the Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. So excited for that one.