The Terminator Series, no matter how good the individual movie is, as a whole is still a mess due to the fact that time traveling is essential in the story and it’s getting harder and harder to explain what’s going on with each additional movie. Terminator Salvation smartly avoid sending anyone back in time, but it received the damaging end of the time traveling storyline of the series. Set in the future after Judgement Day where Skynet ruled humanity with their machines, with tiny pockets of resistance spread across the continents. Terminator Salvation is a much superior product than the forgetful third movie. With a charismatic new lead Marcus (Sam Worthington), the always shouting and angry John Connor (Christian Bale), the cute and younger Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and surprise cameo by Helena Bonham Carter, a CGI Arnold, and a voice cameo by Linda Hamilton, it’s better than expected, even if the underlie fault logic of time traveling changing history stuff still stare right at everyone! I know I complain too much but it’s just annoying that the story just doesn’t make sense with the whole John Connor sent Kyle Reese back in time to save his mom and end up becoming his own father. And then John Connor sent Arnold in the second movie to save himself which result in a delayed judgement day from August 29, 1997 to July 24, 2004 in the third movie. Then John’s wife sent back another terminator to protect them in 2004 after the terminator killed John in 2032. The cause and effect is all mess up, I rather like how this year Star Trek’s treatment on time travel: when you changed something in time it creates an alternate universe.

Despite all that messy timeline, the movie is entertaining, my only other complaint is how unsympathetic John Connor’s character is, I know the character has to be tough, and he definitely show the quality of a leader, but maybe because a big chuck of time was devoted to Marcus, John Connor just wasn’t on screen that much for me to really care about him. Unlike in Batman, no matter how tough Batman is, we feel his pain, this one, we feel nothing, not to mention the way he listen to his mom’s tapes, it’s like he’s listening to some self-help dummy tapes from a bookstore! Show some emotion or something, it’s the voice of your long dead mom!

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Tagged: Movies · Terminator