Opinionator: My Opinion of Terminator Salvation


Terminator Salvation has arrived, starring Christian Bale as the man John Connor has become, fighting the good fight against Skynet. Marcus Wright played by Sam Worthington on the right

I made some predictions about this Terminator before I went. I said that it would be good, but the twists would lack impact, the action would be a B+ and that Bale's Connor would outshine a cast I openly know nothing about.

Looking back, there wasn't that many twists other than Connor being mortally wounded and you knew he would survive because it was made clear during the film that it's following the same timeline that will lead to the first Terminator film despite the changes to the future made in 2 and 3. The action was actually B+, for all the cool stuff that happened there was some extremely convenient/cheese filled moments.

The cast all played their parts as well as possible, Bale succeeded in bringing aggression to the John Connor character. He was passable when he was trying to show the good in humans. The most interesting thing about this version of John Connor is that he isn't the leader of the human resistance at this point. He has fallen into a hierarchy of humans who think they know best despite them knowing that it's Connor who's the machine's primary target other than them. They proceed to act as they see fit, ignoring Connor's warnings. Needless to say they pay for this with their lives.

The star of the show who truly stood out while Bale was stumbling through his attempts at showing compassion was Sam Worthington who played the human-cyborg hybrid Marcus Wright. He was perfect as an anti-hero looking for a chance to redeem himself. He held the film together really, his performance was the best, he was the one who brought the ideals of the film about humanity home the strongest and he was the character who you'll be thinking about when you leave the cinema. Well other than the Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 101 model appearance.


Terminator cycle and T-600

If you're a Terminator fan looking for something that's better than Rise of the Machines and faithful to the first two films there are plenty of moments to choose from. These pre-time traveling Terminators take the best parts of human technology and better them. The T-600s are big, clunky and slow, a far cry from the T-800 series. the T-800 101's appearance in the film was genuinely a surprise. It isn't actually Arnie as he's still governating. His Terminator 1 appearance as been added to a body double's face, mirroring the classic silent killer.

Linda Hamilton has a cameo role through her voice on the tapes she recorded for John in the previous films, her voice is nostalgic and brings back a lot of great memories and hope that T:S could live up to T1 and 2. The truth is that as long as it's not James Cameron in charge, T1 and 2 will always be better than anything that will come in the future.

One character who may go unsung in looking back at Terminator Salvation is that of the young Kyle Reese, other than him saying "come with me if you want to live" making my skin crawl, he was pretty good. Anton Yelchin does a good job in bringing the same characteristics that the elder Reese has in T1.

In closing, Terminator Salvation is a good addition to the franchise that surpasses Terminator 3's flat story (despite having the best ending in all the films, in my opinion of course) and hopefully is the start to a new and interesting trilogy. The mythology and Terminator story was never in danger, but there are a lot of mistakes that need to be corrected in the next Terminator if it's going to function as a creditable war film series.