*** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Just got back from a sneak peek of this and I have to say that I am very pleased. Terminator: Salvation was a very entertaining movie and I thought fit into the Terminator universe very well. The special effects were top notch and the sound mixing was very well done. This will definitely be a great demo disc when it's released on blu-ray later on.

Sure, there were a couple of "yeah, right" moments, but nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year. Overall, the script was pretty good.

There were a couple of spots where it seemed like some scenes were missing, though, so either the editing was a little choppy, or we might be seeing a director's cut of this film when released on home video. Still, I thought this was a solid movie and I definitely will be going to a second viewing this weekend.

8 out of 10.

*** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I just got in from a sneak of “Terminator Salvation”, hosted by a local television station and Warner Brothers.The crowd in attendance was appreciative of the early look at the latest entry in the Terminator saga.

I love James Cameron’s two Arnold-driven films. My son, Kyle, was born in 1984 (though his mother claims he’s named after a great grandfather of hers..). I saw T2 at least 5 times in the theater when it first came out, and rewatched both Terminator movies this past weekend in anticipation. I thought T3 was borderline silly, although I liked the action, and it did put John Conner and Kate in a safe spot as the bombs dropped on Judgment Day. I have to say I did enjoy Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles as well.

I will be honest and say, I also like some of McG’s work. The two Charlie’s Angels movies are guilty pleasures. I appreciate that he has some influence on the series “Chuck”. I’ve been very interested in how he would handle the first full length film to deal with the future war.

Some mild spoilers may follow:

The plot in a nutshell – It’s 2018 and John Conner is a rising maverick in the Resistance. In addition to figuring out ways to disrupt Skynet’s communications with its mechanical army, he’s also working hard to locate Kyle Reese, who is current one of two members of the “LA branch” of the Resistance. The Resistance itself is a loosely organized multinational force with threadbare but effective resources – subs, planes, helicopters, and other weapons. We first see John on a mission to destroy a Skynet stronghold (the Very Large Array, by the looks of things). John and his team discover that Skynet is working on a game-changing terminator just before the stronghold is wiped out, along with the team.

Entering the picture is Marcus Wright, an death-row inmate who, in 2003, agreed to turn his body over to Cyberdyne for research following his death. Not knowing what has ensued after his execution, he wanders confused until he runs into a teenage Kyle Reese and a young mute girl named Star. He agrees to help them connect with John Conner, who is broadcasting encouragement and tips on how to take down the very ugly T-600s.

Through a series of action sequences, a couple that riff on Road Warrior, Kyle and Star are captured by Skynet, Marcus is captured by John, and man and machine must work out a rescue before Skynet’s San Francisco facility is blown off the map.

What worked:
The action and effects. Wow, just wow. Between the variety of terminators shown – the hydr-eels, the moto-terminators (very cool), the large terminator gathering human prisoners, the hunter-killers, and the T-600s and T-800s – and the large scale action scenes, that stuff just hit all the right notes for me. And when you-know-who shows up for the final fight, the audience went nuts!

The nods to the earlier films. Kate Conner is there. Seeing “Cyberdyne” on the release form Marcus signs at the beginning of the film. An explanation of the scars older John has on his face at the beginning of T2. Nice call-backs.

Danny Elfman’s score, and the sound of the film, in general.

What was not so good
The characters could definitely have been developed more. The only ones that we really knew a lot about were John and Kyle, although it was nice to see why Kyle would idolize John so much. The other characters, especially the female soldier Blair, could have used a little more backstory.

The ending of the film. Early reviews have touched on this and I have to agree. Even my friend commented about how, with the injury John suffers during the final fight, no way he could last so long plus, please, those battlefield conditions for the kind of medical resolution they fell back on. It could have been staged a bit better.

All in all, though, I had a great time with the movie, and am looking forward to seeing where they go with the series.

7.5 out of 10, or 3 out of 4.

re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

i just saw a pre-screening of this and it was terrible.

stunts and special effect were great. movie was awful. they could have did better putting this budget somewhere else.

my god, the editing was atrocious.

seriously, if you want to see some stuff blow up you are in the right movie. if you want to see a good movie go see star trek again.

re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I just came back from a preview screening. I thought this film was AWFUL--I am having a hard time thinking of something I have hated more in the past few years. I would compare it to Matrix Revolutions/Alien vs Predators i.e. FRANCHISE KILLER! I was a big fan of the previous films too and was a little miffed earlier in the day too that Fox cancelled the Terminator series. What a boneheaded move, I thought, cancelling a series when this new movie is about to open and possibly create new interest in the series. This movie was so bad I could care less now. I just want to cleanse my pallet of all things Terminator. THIS IS SCI-FI CHANNEL ORIGINAL MOVIE-QUALITY, folks. If you were to replace Christian Bale with Greg Evigan or David Hasselhoff that is what you would have here. Huge disappointment.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "Terminator Salvation". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!

If you need to discuss those type of issues then I have designated an Official Discussion Thread.



Crawdaddy

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I am going to pretend this movie doesn't exist. I'm going to hope it goes the Highlander 2, Rocky V, Never Say Never Again route. What I mean by that is if the film makers continue with Terminator movies, they will pretend this one never took place and ignore the events of this film and make a TRUE fourth movie. Sure it will have the Terminator name, but it will not be an "official" Terminator movie. That is my hopes.
Who saw Charlies Angels and said "That's the guy for Terminator Salvation"?
No character development, no well written dialogue, no one I even cared about. And, I'm sorry, but yelling every line does not make you a good actor.
And if someone can explain to me the method they used to get across the mind field I'd greatly appreciate it.
As others have said, this movie was poorly edited.
I'm being generous here because the first two action scenes are great, and it got me pumped to see the rest. Unfortunately the rest was a letdown.
C-

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It is late, and I'll keep this short and sweet. At least until the morning when I plan to give this film the business in the Discussion Thread.

Flat and tepid, with fundamental character and narrative flaws. It did have a nice look, and some well done action scenes. Occasionally, it came alive for a few moments. I am glad I tempered my expectations or I would have been exceedingly disappointed.

Bummer,
5.5/10

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Just got back from a midnight screening. It was not a bad movie but not an excellent movie either. I enjoyed the action scenes alot. The plot left alot to be desired though. All in all a good summer popcorn movie. Ebert said it best

"It gives you all the pleasure of a video game without the bother of having to play it."

3/4

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This movie was just plain dopey. I was disappointed.

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Seems as if the character and heart was left on the cutting room floor for this thing because everything else seems to work just okay.

I'm now very, very curious about those 30 to 40 minutes of deleted scenes.

This film just feels like studio interference...

And yet, I think I like this film more than T3 just for this simple fact that it wasn't a self parody. At least McG took the mythology and the plot very seriously because the film is played very, very straight. The cheesiness comes from Elfman's score (Who would've thought that?!).

I just don't think I can pass judgment on the film YET until I see those deleted scenes because I think that's where you can find the rest of Bryce's and Christian's performance....

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yeah the editing was awful. it seemed like there were scenes missing

special effects were definitely top notch

overall, entertaining but it could have been better.

*** / *****

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Punchy editing.
Paint by numbers dialog.
Stilted delivery.
Storyline that is the equivalent of Matrix sequels.
Forgettable.
Insane coincidences that make you think Skynet runs the lotto.

One of the worst summer blockbusters I've seen. To give you an idea, compared to this, Wolverine looks like (insert solid summer flick)

D. 2 good effects, but not enough to pay for the price of the ticket.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Cameron told his story. McG is telling this one. This new trilogy really is different than the first. Yes, they are based upon the same mythology, but that's about it.

I watched this last night with my Dad. (His favorite movie is T2.) We were both really entertained. This movie is not what audiences were expecting. I believe the people who were disappointed by this movie were expecting Bale's Connor to be more like Craig's Bond or Sutherland's Bauer, where the focus is just on the one main character.

This movie essentially has two main protagonists, with one slightly overshadowing another. I'm sure that doesn't sit right with most. Bale was initially contacted to play Marcus Wright. He turned it down and wanted to play Connor. Why? Who knows. Perhaps he felt passionate enough about the new story and believed in that character more. Perhaps it was because he wants to see the sequels made.

You have to give McG credit here. This movie was just different than the typical summer blockbuster fare. No quick cuts during the action scenes. Jeez, did you see that opening battle scene? Seamless! Long shots! Amazing! They really put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making this movie.

Sure the movie itself may have had some unnerving transitions. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the extended Blu-Ray.

***Side note. Some idiot brought his 4 year old to the movie and sat in our row. How irresponsible! What an idiot. To make matters worse, this kid was coughing up popcorn kernels multiple times during the movie. On the other side of us, some other idiot didn't know how to eat quietly. He ate his popcorn one piece at a time during the whole movie. Towards the end this fatso was SHAKING the bag loudly to separate the unpopped kernels from the popped. Oh, and then he unwrapped the Milk Duds box midway through the movie (during a quiet part) and proceeded to drink them from the box. I hate people.***

Watch the movie. It's Terminator for crying out loud.

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Terminator: Salvation isn't terrible but it's not very good either. If you just want to see action, you'll be satisified but if you're looking for anything more, you won't be getting it. The story is pretty muddled but they try to clear it up with lots of looped lines. On the plus side, the last 30 minutes of the movie really pick up. The effects are great. It's real cool when Arnold shows up (via a CG head). And I give them credit for not trying to be joke-y with the tone of the movie.

Overall, it's much better than Terminator 3 but that's not saying much.

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I like the film for what it is which is an action film with a long history attached to it due to the prior "Arnold" films. I was totally entertained throughout the film. Could it have been better? Yes, it could've been with some additional scenes explaining how John Connor became this great resistance leader. Or further development between John and his wife. I do agree that the editing was disjointed so an extended version will hopefully improve that aspect of the film.

All together, a good summer action film that didn't reach its full potential, but it was entertaining enough to keep me interested throughout it's entire runtime.






Crawdaddy

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I also enjoyed this film a lot - much better than T3. Glad we also have a Terminator movie which isnt just a chase movie. Surprised by the focus on Marcus Wright rather than John Connor and whilst I hadnt seen any trailers, the big surprise was obvious after the opening.

As everyone has said, some of the editing was awful. It just seems like they yanked entire scenes out for an extended version. Whilst the cuts were jarring, I didnt feel like it spoiled the film, but who knows, the extra scenes may improve or detract from the film.

Missed the Terminator music

1/2 out of

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I found myself very much disengaged from the film because there is no good character hook into the story, and I also fear it was due to chopping out a lot of character development/backstory footage for the plethora of action money shots that failed to support the personal stakes of the characters because I simply had very little in terms in investment into the characters in this particular installment of the Terminator franchise.

Character arcs are what fueled the first 2 Terminator films, and McG and company don't understand this fundamental core tenant, and you are left with a lot of action porn, and very little story and narrative foundation, which requires stuff to blow up to get from scene to scene.

In the end, I have a "meh" reaction to the film as a whole.

I give it 2 stars, or a grade of C.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I can't say I liked it very much, even as a mindless action movie. As has been mentioned in other reviews, the film has no heart - no human side. It's very dour and every character is terribly underwritten.

It feels more like a video game than it does an involving story. It's about the mechanics of the machines and the plots more than it is about the motivations of the characters. The one time the film turns on an emotional decision, it's so poorly sold that it rings false. It's very noticeable since the film's main plot, it's central goal for the characters, could be such an emotional focus - John Connor must save his father's life and thereby meet him for the first time. But it's never once mentioned in those terms. It's always, Reese is the key to the future and the past, or some such mechanical nonsense. They never revel in the humanity of the situation.

But probably most criminal of all is that it lacks a clear antagonist. The film just wants to rely on the ethereal force "skynet" as the bad guy. But as that isn't given a face or pinpoint presence in the film, there's not a palpable threat. Even "The Matrix" which was about a similar "machine" threat gave us Agent Smith. And again I fear this is the influence of the video game age where antagonists are reduced to bad guys that are "multiple targets" to shoot at. The original worked so well because the antagonist, Arnie's Terminator, was so clear and menacing. Even Robert Patrick's menacing T-1000 was a wonderful bad guy to root against. This film has none of that.

And on a purely nitpicky geek note - the future war looks nothing like it did in the original films, i.e. a nuclear junkyard full of cars and debris. Everything takes place in the day, not at night (which gave the future war that beautiful look and feel). Everything is white, and not bathed in blues. You also got the sense in the original films that these guys had no technology to fight technology. They drove around in junk cars with machine guns bolted to the top. You got the sense that it was their will to live that caused them to beat the machines, not jets and helicopters in perfect working condition.

Ultimately, the reason the film failed for me was that the action just wasn't fun. It was ugly and loud (Sure, the sound mix was loud with plenty of bass, but it wasn't balanced well and was very strident). Too much of the action was shot like "Saving Private Ryan", following characters around and not showing the total geography of the scene, building the tension of where the opponents are, what they are doing, how close to death the heroes are. It was just boring.

And that sums up the movie. It was just boring.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I saw this last night and a lightly attended theater in Cleveland (to be fair, the Cavs were playing game 2 with a lot at stake, so..). I really enjoyed the film and I think having really lowered expecations helped. That said, I had a good time. The story was decent service to the action and some of the action shots were inspired. There was an initial chopper scene that looked to be shot in one take that was pretty cool. The T-600 scene was good, too. I like Yelchin as Reese and Worthington as the lead (as I think he is more focal to the story than Bale's Connor). It was a nice continuation of the original storyline, too. Shows that mucking with time can have some serious repercussions. I didn't care for the ending but the lead up to it was fun. Someone expecting HAMLET (as seen above, apparently) might not be too happy but it was a good action film. Oh, and it was good to see Michael Ironside on screen, again. Been a while. In fact, this is the kind of fun sci fi flick that Ironside was known for gracing in the 80's so it is a nice return to form.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I can't really add anything that hasn't already been said. Good but not great. I enjoyed parts of it very much but it felt too small. Truncated and not epic in the least.

I think Conner should have been in the background -- just a voice on the radio, inspiring others to resist. Inspiring Kyle Reese, who I thought was one bright spot. I liked Marcus Wright but -- as written -- his is a lame quest.

I guess what I'm saying is this is not the story that should have been told. The blame for this weak reboot lays firmly at the feet of the screenwriters -- lazy, bush league stuff. Criminal, really. There were nods and winks throughout (certain action beats, lines of dialog, etc) but they were obvious and cheeky. Actually, this reminded me quite a bit of the newest Friday the 13th and latest Indiana Jones film. There were portions taken from other films in the older series blended with new stuff. The whole climax had shades of T1 & T2 -- certain shots were cribbed completely, like the Terminator foot going up the stairs and the melting/freezing sequence. This is a hodge podge of ideas that looked good on paper.

Too many characters were completely under-written -- Ashdown and the sub crew. Useless. Also, the Blair character looks as if she just came from a Revlon photoshoot for the whole ruinning time. Jane Alexander given nothing to do. Barnes -- I could care less. Connor's wife and unborn child -- given nothing to do. Skynet is not scary smart enough.

Here's what I wanted:

John should have been addressing the resistance from Crystal Peak. The resistance is fighting off the T-600s with rubber skin. Marcus should have been trying to find him to get help for a pocket of freedom fighters, only to be revealed as the first infiltration unit with human tissue. Kyle saves him in the nick of time. He give Kyle the photo and tells him that there is a special mission for him.

"Terminator: Don't Bore Me" shows the resistance getting their asses kicked by new and improved AI -- losing their weapons, aircraft, etc. John, wife, child, and Kyle are driven into hiding. Pockets of survivors are rounded up for easy disposal. John reveals himself to the resistance and teaches the survivors to fight, to storm the wire of the camps and smash those metal motherfvckers into junk.

"Terminator: The One You've Been Waiting For" shows the last mission -- the last great offensive, capturing the lab complex and sending Kyle through after the Terminator. Skynet destroyed. The End.

Here's hoping there is an extended edition on Blu-Ray.

**.5/5

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I really had a great time with it. The action scenes were extremely well done, the FX were fantastic, and I really dug the two leads (Bale and Worthington). While its not the Cameron flicks, it does (easily) go down as the best thing McG has ever done. As was noted in an earlier review, the crowd went nuts when a certain cyborg showed up in the finale (very solid CG work in this sequence).

This was very much a big, loud, popcorn flick that was really fun to watch. It has its fair share of problems, but not enough for me to not recommend seeing it on the big screen. I'm giving it a solid 3 star rating (out of 4).

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Disappointing. I think it was better than the 3rd, but both are so equally forgettable that I don't really remember. These movies are not smart anymore. The terminator is no longer an efficient machine, it now gets in fist fights prior to trying to kill it's victims.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Went and saw this on Saturday, I thought it was enjoyable but, in the end, brainless.

I loved the look of the film, it looked appropriately dark and bleak but shots that should have been emotional come off as nothing more than eye candy, like the shot of the ruins of LA, we've been hearing about it's destruction since the first film but when we finally see it it's just like...meh, cool looking but no heart.

That pretty much sums up the film as a whole as well.

Christian Bale as John Connor didn't really work that well for me, he screamed "this is a big budget Hollywood production with A-list stars" too much for my liking, I would have much preferred it if they went with an unknown for that role.

And why must every film that takes place in the apocalyptic future feature a mute kid?

Best part about the film was the undeniable state-of-the-art-action and visuals, the action was impressive enough (and **LOUD**, should be a great demo Blu-ray when it's released) but again they carried no emotional weight whatsoever, they were just sort of...there. My favorite moment of the entire film was
Warning Spoiler! Click to show

IMO the film suffers from the same sort of overkill that every action film nowdays suffers from, the technology has gotten so advanced that filmmakers are free to show us everything under the sun when it's wise to sometimes use older approaches to some scenes and keep us tight on an object or character. One of the things that made the first film a classic is that it used grunt-style filmmaking techniques, keeping the frame squarely on faces and showing us only what is necessary.

If The Terminator were made now we would have seen Arnold behind the wheel of that semi while the camera did a whip-zoom around the truck (with a complete CGI environment of course including the truck) before zooming through the windshield to show us an impressive close-up of a CGI Arnold's face complete with moving face pistons and hydraulics...not needed just because you can do it.

Fun enough movie, just doesn't feel like a continuation of the first two or even the third film, like the landscapes in the film, it's stark, barren and desolate. I do hope however that they make a fifth film, I want to see the events that Kyle foretold to Sarah in the first film, Kyle following the T-800 through the time displacement equipment and the destruction of Skynet.

Hey just because we have cool bad guys in the form of Terminators doesn't mean I don't want to see us win this thing once and for all.

Three 's out of five 's for Terminator: Salvation My favorite McG film remains We Are Marshall.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

While enjoyable to watch, Terminator Salvation is a weak Terminator movie. It lacked a strong protagonist and antagonist, making for a unexciting action movie. The story it told wasn't an important or especially interesting aspect of the Terminator timeline. It felt like a prologue to the movie that should have been made.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Terminator Salvation is not shite but it is one big, messy, wet fart.

Character motivations are a mess. The internal story logic is self contradictory. There are a few well done action set pieces but with no emotional connections to the characters involved with them, who cares?

Wolverine you can relax, you are no longer the poorest film out this year. Adamantium amnesia bullets versus cyborg heart transplants. Pick your poison.

Give me T3 any day. At least it had a sense of humour. This film has none.

I would rate it but since I'll never see it again, why bother?

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Went to see this last night and I probably should have just waited for the Blu-Ray after all. It was decent, but certainly nowhere near the greatness of Terminator or T2. There were some very cool action scenes(loved the Terminator motorcycles) and the Endoskeletons were utilized better than they ever have been in any of the other Terminator flicks, but the story was completely uninteresting and the acting was terrible. I've never seen Christian Bale give a bad performance, but this has to be his worst. Overall, I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I thought it was much better than many of the negative reviews in this thread(btw whats up wihh the spoilers in here??).

I had a great time. Lots of great action and I even liked the story.
1\4

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I saw this a few days ago and my initial impression was "Meh, that kinda sucked" then after thinking more about the story and everything else about it - I think it was one of the worse movies I have ever seen in a theater.

I keep hearing at least the action was decent, but even compared to Terminator 3 I think it fails in most every aspect. When the characters, story, editing are just downright poor, the action doesn't mean anything at all.

This movie fails even for a mindset of "turn your brain off and enjoy" type of movie.

A total mess.

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

Went to our local Showcase cinema with a friend.

The new Transformers trailer looked pretty spectacular it looks like Michael Bay has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into this one. It's going to hit huge.Than there was a trailer to a film I knew little about, Surrogates, a sci-fi film starring Bruce Willis. It looked very interesting, the director was Jonathan Mostow who also made Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines.


Terminator Salvation Review.

There was not much to the script, the film was almost completely devoid of humour, the acting was pretty blah, violent but curiously bloodless, but the film made up for any shortcomings with spectacular scenes of carnage, state of the art visuals and action overload. I thought it was an excellent addition to the series and a departure from what we've seen before in that this takes place almost entirely after Judgement Day. The settings have a suitably gloomy end of the world Mad Max feel to them and the desaturated colour was another plus.



Somehow John Connor evolved from spunky Edward Furlong into whiny Nick Stahl and on to gruff growly Christian Bale. Luckily the growl wasn't as annoying as my nephew made it out to be. I think the only time Bale smiled in this film is when he said "I'll be back" to his wife Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron's daughter), and Russell I think thats the scene where the infamous 'Bale rant' occured with the cameraman. Bryce was in that scene too, I can't think of where else it might have happened.

The real hero of the film is Marcus Wright played by Sam Worthington, a guy who doesn't realise he is a cyborg, a Skynet weapon, this 'shocker' was spoilt by the twerps who created the T4 trailer. Marcus was the main hero in the original screenplay but when Bale showed an interest in playing John Connor they beefed up his part.

Chris Pine in Star Trek and now another star is born in Sam Worthington who was very effective as Marcus, he next stars in James Cameron's $300m sci-fi epic Avatar out in december (I still can't believe there's a James Cameron film out this year, wow! Where has he been?)



I had to shake my head at the guys in the discussion thread who have been nitpicking this film to death, who cares how much stronger the early model of the T-800 is in this film than in previous films or why Skynet didn't immediately kill [spoiler] when they had him. It's a summer action film, not a practical guide to the laws of robotics.

In one scene what looks like a giant Transformer robot seems to have accidentally wandered off Michael Bay's movie and into the T4 landscape.

T4 is the 3rd best Terminator movie after T2 and T1. I'll always have a soft spot for the first Terminator film.

T3 and it’s miscast leads the worst Terminator film, though I did enjoy Kristanna Loken’s Terminatrix.

Terminator 2 - Judgement Day remains the greatest robot movie ever made and along with Die Hard arguably the two greatest action movies in cinema history.

Terminator Salvation gets 4 out of 5. Highly recommended (especially for action aficianados.)

Re: *** Official TERMINATOR SALVATION Review Thread

I'm glad I didn't pay attention to most of the reviews in this thread and decided to see this film for myself. I do not think this installment comes anywhere close to the first two installments, but I thought it was better than T3. It was a different take on the Terminator series in that it did not have a protagonist facing off against a clearly defined antagonist. The complaints about Skynet not having a clearly defined face stump me. Skynet was never really defined in any of the films. It has always been an amorphous opponent, so it is beyond me why Skynet should suddenly be expected to have a clear "face" in this movie.

This film was about the actual war taking place between humans and machines. As such, I would expect character development to take a back seat to the actual events occurring during that time. People seemed to be expecting some kind of James Cameron style focus on the trial and tribulations faced by Connor. How many times can a film be made showing Skynet sending a machine out to hunt Connor before it gets boring? In this film, Skynet attempts something more subtle and for that alone I think the film ends up better than it is being given credit for.

As for the lack of humour. I noticed that myself, but I have to ask a question. How can anyone derive humour from a situation where the entire human race is on the verge of extinction? This was essentially a Sci-Fi war film, so the lack of humour was understandable to me. If I sit and analyze this film I can spot a lot of problems; however, the same can be said about the original films.

For me, notwithstanding the obvious "Road Warrior" influences, the film turned out to be better than a lot of the comments here indicated. I'm also glad I avoided a lot of the reviews here due to the enormous spoilers that were being posted. I would probably give this film a B- : flawed, but still entertaining enough in its depiction of the man/machine war.