Terminator Salvation Review: Is it Really Salvation?

Terminator Salvation is not as bad as it could be, nor is it as good as it could be. But it is a step up from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Salvation is going to trick you. Because you think you are going to go see a movie about John Connor. Think again. John's in it but he's not the story here. The story is about Marcus Wright, played by the newcomer Sam Worthington, a convict that wakes up in this apocalyptic future and has no idea what is going on. Kind of like 28 Days Later but not as well done. Worthington does a good job as the man feeling the weight of his condemnation and he's fun to watch when he plays the tough guy. The problem is that we, as an audience, care about John, and never really get past that.

Now the bad. The film has has very little dramatic power. Aside from a few scenes between Marcus and John (Christian Bale, struggling to make the film better than it is), most scenes of dialogue feel like a waste of time.

The good. This movie is fucking exhilarating. The action sequences are mind-blowing to watch. There is an explosion approximately every three seconds. You will not see more things blow up - ever. Michael Bay is eating his heart out now because he just got one up'd. You can feel your heart pounding through your chest for pretty much the entirety of this film. It's an adrenaline rush that will be hard to top.

And the ugly. A lot of the effects left me wanting more. Overall, they are pretty solid, but when they fail, they fail hard.

And that is sort of the way of this film: it exists in extremes. Where it succeeds, it knocks it out of the fucking park. Where it fails, it sucks chunks through a straw. Fortunately, the film succeeds more than it fails.

And as final note: Fuck you, Danny Elfman. Rule number one about scoring a Terminator movie is that you use the fucking Terminator theme. You don't dick around with that. If you can't find a place where you think it fits in the film (btw it fits anywhere because it is the fucking Terminator theme), then you throw it in over the ending credits. You do not, and I repeat do not, compose a score that sounds like your fucking Spiderman score. Go fuck yourself Danny Elfman.

That is all.