Terminator Salvation (12A.)
Directed by McG.
Starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard. 115 mins
T4 is post Arnie and post Judgement Day; it’s the Terminator story you knew was coming, but probably never really wanted. No more time travelling, just dull grumpy humourless humans fighting dull grumpy humourless robots.
It’s 2018 and across a devastated nuclear ravaged landscape the remains of the human race are doing surprisingly well in their battle against the invincible killing machines. Though ruthless with the extras or subsidiary cast when confronted by a lead, these robots dilly dally like a Bond villain.
It’s a strange blockbuster that puts all the biggest and best action sequences in the first half; with its slowly subsiding levels of thrills and excitement it’s less a narrative arc, more narrative Titanic. It means that you leave the theatre considerably less enthused than you should be but to err is human and there is something welcoming about the notion of miscalculation in a film that has otherwise been executed with such ruthless, mirthless efficiency.
In general the machines, led by The McG2000, have done a good job. The action sequences, of which there are many, are seamlessly rendered and for them alone it’s arguably worth catching.
In T-2 the enemy was a Terminator that could take on the form of anybody he came across: TS is a movie equivalent, seamlessly mutating from Transformers to Mad Max, Battlestar Galactica, Spielberg’s War of the World, the Matrix sequels before finally settling for a rehash of the Terminator 2 climax. It even throws in the big bike from the Dark Knight. Anything to keep your eyes filled; anything to try and distract from its utter pointlessness.
You really miss old Arnie. He was a clunking liability in most everything else but his Terminator is a classic screen incarnation and by the third one his performance had become incredibly graceful. But it’s not just him; it’s Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Claire Danes, Joe Morton, Robert Patrick, anyone who drew a thread of humanity through the spectacle.
Instead we get Christian Bale as the third (after Edward Furlong and Nick Stahl) and least endearing, incarnation of resistance leader John Conner. He’s back doing the cold gravely voiced hard man thing. He’s a great actor but a dull action hero. His characterisation seems to have been to boil himself down to the barest rudiments - some of his line deliveries in an early battle field sequence are almost Neanderthal. Surely humanity's saviour should be a little bit, you know, human?
It’s the ultimate back-to-basics. There has always been a bleakness to the Terminator films, a fatalism that this civilisation can’t save itself, that we need to be purged to rediscover ourselves. They’re a survivalist wet dream, exploiting the strange comfort audiences take in these we’re all doomed visions. So a strange place for a bit of product placement - I’m sure Vaio share holders will be chuffed to see that their market penetration is holding up so well post apocalypse.
Directed by McG.
Starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard. 115 mins
T4 is post Arnie and post Judgement Day; it’s the Terminator story you knew was coming, but probably never really wanted. No more time travelling, just dull grumpy humourless humans fighting dull grumpy humourless robots.
It’s 2018 and across a devastated nuclear ravaged landscape the remains of the human race are doing surprisingly well in their battle against the invincible killing machines. Though ruthless with the extras or subsidiary cast when confronted by a lead, these robots dilly dally like a Bond villain.
It’s a strange blockbuster that puts all the biggest and best action sequences in the first half; with its slowly subsiding levels of thrills and excitement it’s less a narrative arc, more narrative Titanic. It means that you leave the theatre considerably less enthused than you should be but to err is human and there is something welcoming about the notion of miscalculation in a film that has otherwise been executed with such ruthless, mirthless efficiency.
In general the machines, led by The McG2000, have done a good job. The action sequences, of which there are many, are seamlessly rendered and for them alone it’s arguably worth catching.
In T-2 the enemy was a Terminator that could take on the form of anybody he came across: TS is a movie equivalent, seamlessly mutating from Transformers to Mad Max, Battlestar Galactica, Spielberg’s War of the World, the Matrix sequels before finally settling for a rehash of the Terminator 2 climax. It even throws in the big bike from the Dark Knight. Anything to keep your eyes filled; anything to try and distract from its utter pointlessness.
You really miss old Arnie. He was a clunking liability in most everything else but his Terminator is a classic screen incarnation and by the third one his performance had become incredibly graceful. But it’s not just him; it’s Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Claire Danes, Joe Morton, Robert Patrick, anyone who drew a thread of humanity through the spectacle.
Instead we get Christian Bale as the third (after Edward Furlong and Nick Stahl) and least endearing, incarnation of resistance leader John Conner. He’s back doing the cold gravely voiced hard man thing. He’s a great actor but a dull action hero. His characterisation seems to have been to boil himself down to the barest rudiments - some of his line deliveries in an early battle field sequence are almost Neanderthal. Surely humanity's saviour should be a little bit, you know, human?
It’s the ultimate back-to-basics. There has always been a bleakness to the Terminator films, a fatalism that this civilisation can’t save itself, that we need to be purged to rediscover ourselves. They’re a survivalist wet dream, exploiting the strange comfort audiences take in these we’re all doomed visions. So a strange place for a bit of product placement - I’m sure Vaio share holders will be chuffed to see that their market penetration is holding up so well post apocalypse.
