J.J. Abrams’
superior craftsmanship of Star Trek convinced me that it
was possible for the “fill in” movie, an emerging species of
Summer 2009 sequels that use time-travel to embellish on
established stories rather than linearly furthering them, to
work. Not two weeks later, I saw this film, best described as
hack director McG’s assault on the beloved Terminator
series, and my opinion on the new narrative concept returned to
what it would have been had you asked me pre-Trek. Let’s
hope the two movies don’t signal a trend, because the structure
seems like the most pitiful excuse for cash-in
franchise-additions to date. That is, it does in hands less
competent than those of Abrams, who has already established
himself as a film and TV wunderkind.
Time travel
is nothing new in cinema—in fact, the first three Terminator
movies all used the device—but before this summer, the concept
was something a given team of filmmakers built their narrative
around, not a mere convenience. Star Trek, compelling as
it ultimately was, and Terminator Salvation seem to just
use the concept because it’s an easy excuse to reboot or
makeover a franchise without immediately betraying the fan-base.
In other words, the fabled old actors and stories still exist;
they just aren’t present in the new alternate realities created
by time travel. This, I suppose, is where the main distinction
between the legitimacy of the gimmick in Star Trek and
Terminator Salvation lies: the former series was in
desperate need of change, whereas the latter wasn’t broken to
begin with.
The year is
2018, after Doomsday, and a young Resistance is engaged in the
franchise’s staple battle with machine behemoth Skynet. John
Connor (Christian Bale), not yet Resistance leader but a key
player in the movement, is preparing to test a secret weapon
that could blow the opposition to smithereens. Meanwhile, Kyle
Reese (Anton Yelchin), the (currently very young) man who will
father John in the future, roams a desolate Los Angeles. He
teams up with Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who unbeknownst
to him may actually be a machine. (In the film’s first scene,
Marcus is executed after conceding rights to his body in
exchange for a kiss from the female experimenter petitioning him
in his last hours.) But Kyle is soon captured by the machines
and Marcus, behaving with fully human characteristics, must find
John, the only person with a vested interest in saving Kyle
knowing what his existence means to the future of humanity. If
this doesn’t make a lick of sense to you, you either haven’t
seen the original trilogy or you’re just plain dumbfounded by
the ludicrousness of it all.
Was
Terminator Salvation doomed from the start due to its
unnecessary nature? Perhaps, but director McG (Charlie’s
Angels) exacerbates the premise’s problems because he is
unable to craft a cohesive, epic story arc. In the one-time
music video helmer’s hands, the film becomes utterly mechanical
and devoid of any sense of rhythm or build-up. Repeated,
soulless action scenes merely occur in sequence and do little
for the grander story but emphasize just how cool
explosions and gunshots look. This harms Terminator Salvation more than it might another movie because its lack
of a concrete villain—the only real bad guy is the nondescript
entity that is Skynet—leaves no pre-existing emotional arc
established by the process of the viewer rooting for
protagonists struggling against a conventional opponent. And as
if powerful artificial intelligence turning against humankind
wasn’t cliché enough, McG makes the experience all the more
treacherous because he turns it into a videogame, episodic and
purposeless. Given the clunky nature of his direction, one
assumes this is because he’s unable to achieve anything more
complex in terms of narrative. (Up to this point, he was able to
get away with his inadequacies because the Charlie’s Angels
films practically required empty, isolated action
sequences to succeed.)
Then again,
screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris were, after
all, the ones who staged all those action scenes in the first
place. McG is surely responsible for the action’s mundane
visuals and flawed pacing on the screen, but its sheer
abundance—one of the film’s biggest problems—is a feature of
that uninspired, purposeless script. In fact, I’d be willing to
bet that even original Terminator filmmaker, the genius
James Cameron, would have had a tough time making sense of all
the booms and bangs. It has been reported that both Paul Haggis
and Jonathan Nolan worked on the script in the early stages of
its evolution; even if fragments of their labor still appear in
the final cut, they should consider themselves lucky to be
uncredited.
As if its
poor script and over-his-head director weren’t enough, the
film’s actors also lose track of all coherence. As John Connor,
Christian Bale mainly just yells at the top of his lungs and
acts frantic. Bale’s apology for his infamous fit against D.P.
Shane Hurlburt on the grounds that the scene was “very intense”
and he was trying to remain in the character is not
substantiated by his one-dimensional performance. Anton Yelchin
fares slightly better and makes for a serviceable Kyle Reese,
but his comic turn in Star Trek was far more compelling.
Relative newcomers Sam Worthington and Moon Bloodgood are as
blank as white walls, although in Worthington’s case that may
have been intentional given subsequent revelations about his
character. The usually delightful Bryce Dallas Howard barely
registers. The bottom line is that the cast is just as aimless
as the action itself, probably because they couldn’t make sense
of the spacey plot.
Many may
apologize for Terminator Salvation’s shortcomings by
deeming it an acceptable “summer movie” because it’s so filled
with the genre-standard CGI indulgences and booming
sound-effects. But moviegoers should be smarter than to have
such low expectations. While summer movies need not be
incredibly smart, they should at least—like all other
movies—offer well-tailored arcs with captivating build-up,
climax, and resolution. Putting out a haphazardly-connected
series of dull action sequences under the guise of a widely
respected and recognized franchise-name is about the laziest,
most reviling thing studio Warner Brothers could have done to
rip-off the hardworking movie masses. Hopefully, said masses
will realize this and borrow Twisted Sister’s appropriately
immortal chant: “We’re not gonna take it, aaaanymoreeee!”
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 5.20.2009
Screened on:
5.18.2009 at the Edwards Mira Mesa 18 in Mira Mesa, CA.
Terminator Salvation is rated PG-13
and runs 115 minutes.
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