Terminator Salvation getting blasted by critics
The new Terminator film is getting it’s fair share of abuse from critics. Most (but not all) are giving it the ‘dour’ and ‘humorless’ treatment.
Every summer movie season must have its share of clanging heavy metal, and fitting the bill this year is the awkwardly titled Terminator Salvation, which has enough exploding robots, aircraft and artillery to tide us over until Transformers 2 arrives. Neither bland enough to ignore nor noteworthy enough to remember, the movie occupies that crowded middle ground of serviceable sequels that send you home feeling, if not exactly burned, then certainly unsatisfied. This is the most dour and humorless of the four Terminator pictures — I don’t think there’s a single moment of comic relief in the whole two hours — and the serious tone weighs down the film. Sure, those Terminator motorcycles are way cool, and the Godzilla-sized Terminator is even cooler. (The noises it makes are pure movie-geek heaven — the neatest movie sound effect since the bombs that went ke-raaang! during the asteroid-belt sequence in Attack of the Clones.) – From Miami Herald
He said he’ll be back – but who knew the best of ’80s action flicks would come with him? “He” is Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose CGI-created face turns up on a new body in a crucial battle in “Terminator Salvation,” a fast-moving, rock ‘em-sock ‘em movie that continues the man-vs.-machines series begun 25 years ago. Between this and “Star Trek,” popcorn-movie reboots have hit high gear. The last entry, 2003’s “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” was the Governator’s final starring role, and it ended with reluctant messiah John Connor and his girlfriend Kate in a fallout shelter as the sentient computer Skynet launched nuclear attacks. From NY Daily News
Both warning and advertisement, the Terminator films are technophobic teases, selling tickets by promising this decade’s new model of killing machine: the classic V8 1984 Schwarzenegger; the streamlined, liquid-metal ‘91 Robert Patrick of T2: Judgment Day; Kristanna Loken’s 2003 T-X (with burgundy pleather upholstery) in T3: Rise of the Machines. Terminator Salvation, a departure in many ways, is the first Terminator with no upgrade. The hardware is clanky and runs on diesel. Schwarzenegger is present only as a CGI mask. The franchise’s creation myth—the toppling of humanity by Skynet computers—has finally come to pass by 2018. Christian Bale’s John Connor is a maverick officer in the human Resistance. Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright, last he remembers, donated his body to Cyberdyne before a lethal injection. He wakes to a blasted world, carrying a plot twist familiar to anyone who knows her Philip K. Dick. – From City Pages