Review: Terminator Salvation

REVIEW
The most intimidating thing about the Terminator is its bloody-minded refusal to give up until it's firmly stomped on your head.

Unfortunately, the franchise itself seems to have taken on the same traits, repeatedly returning from the grave no matter how many critical anvils get dumped on it.

Terminator Salvation is the latest lurching, clawing grab for your cash, an effects-daubed light and sound show that stretches James Cameron's original vision further than a stick of gum pulled across a four-lane motorway.

Our story continues in 2018, in which the battle continues between the mangy leftovers of humanity and the might of the self-aware Skynet computer system and its metallic hordes.

Christian Bale is John Connor, the "messiah" of the resistance who transmits regular DIY terminator-killing tips to his followers over the airwaves like a hybrid of Che Guevara and Martha Stewart.

He is slowly learning of the existence of the T-800s; the robot killing machines with a topping of human skin. But he's also on the front-line of a plan to wipe out Skynet completely, and he's prepared to blow a lot of stuff up to follow it through.

In return, Skynet has put him near the top of its "kill list" - just below Kyle Reese, the teenage incarnation of the soldier who will later be sent back in time to do something very important.

So once again, the super-computer's masterplan involves messing around with paradoxes by killing someone so that the present can never happen. And while it's a very smart ploy which would probably get you lots of attention at dinner parties, it does seem needlessly complicated and showy when the guy you need to kill is actually, like, right there in front of you.

You get the impression that if anyone ever asked Skynet to take out the rubbish, it would send a Terminator back in time to wipe out all the individual components of the pasta bake so that dinner could never happen.

Into this tense mix appears Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a Death Row inmate from 2003 who has a key role to play in the war between man and machines. While this role could have been a great secret in a better film, it's clunkily uncovered in the opening scene and even blown completely in a blabbermouth trailer.

The conflict rages in a world that's wonderfully slick and extremely loud, but we're way past the stage where shiny things are the only requirement for a good film. The Terminators themselves look spectacular, but the film lacks heart.

Christian Bale has demonstrated his acting powers in films such as American Psycho, but his intermittent bursts of low-pitched, Dark Knight-style growly-shouting sound more like the Cookie Monster than a man raging against demons and murderous tin openers.

With Sam Worthington's value as a character knee-capped by fumbling plotting, we're left with ham-fisted ponderings on what it means to be human, a trick that the Matrix saga also pulled when it ran out of ideas before it was willing to stop raking in the money.

In fact, the saga staggers over many of the landmines that the Matrix sequels set off several years back. Both the early Terminators and The Matrix captured the imagination because they pitched this other, threatening "reality" into the familiar modern-day world, asking audiences to imagine what it would be like to have their lunch disrupted by a tin man from the apocalyptic future, or a long-jacketed cat with a note saying that Pop Tarts, bus schedules, Vaseline and monster truck rallies are all the construct of a virtual world designed to keep you snoozing.

In contrast, both later dumped modern-day reality and wandered off into the other place itself, focusing on the battles and the special effects and complicating the original ingenious stories with cheap undergraduate mutterings until your angry brain was tied in a reef knot.

While the first two Terminator movies will always be classics, Terminator Salvation feels like returning to a flat you used to rent a couple of years back. You recognise the view, and some of the furniture's still there, but you couldn't give a damn about any of the people who live there now.

Terminator Salvation is showing at Cineworld West India Quay. Click here for showtimes and booking information.