There is a perplexing brand of moviegoer who will vehemently
apologize for any special effects–laden summer movie, even if the
filmmakers completely botched their $100 million mandate to make
something entertaining. “Wolverine wasn’t that bad,”
they’ll say, as though their children had starred in the movie and so
they’re proprietarily afraid to acknowledge its raw, turgid awfulness.
Even these apologists will have a hard time justifying Terminator
Salvation.
Christian Bale turns in his worst performance ever as John Connor, a
future-Rambo who is
single-mindedly obsessed with killing the
machines that have taken over the world. The problem is that Connor has
no personality—Bale’s leaked, curse-laden rant from last spring
about a lighting technician accidentally stepping into his line of
sight has more complexity than any of his scenes in this film. (The bad
war-movie dialogue isn’t doing him any favors: “My men died down in
that hole!”) And nobody else does any better. It’s a pit of mediocrity:
Common lives up to his name, Sam Worthington grimaces lamely, and even
Danny Elfman’s score is the most uninspired mess he’s ever
produced.
A few scenes are exciting, particularly a mid-movie fight with a
tricky-shinned gigantic robot—but thanks to bad pacing and weak
cinematography, they feel exciting in spite of the director’s best
efforts, rather than because of them. The plot is somehow entirely
constructed from holes. There are a couple of twists in the middle of
all the screaming and ‘splosions, but they’re not particularly clever.
This film isn’t a worthy successor to the weird horror-movie vibe of
the first Terminator or the eye-popping action of T2, but
the really sad thing is that it’s not even as good as the crap-tastic
mess that was Terminator 3. There’s no possible justification
for taking a beloved sci-fi film franchise like this and just shitting
banality all over it. 
What I don’t understand is how the new Star Trek POS got rave reviews yet this is getting shredded by the critics. By your description, it sounds like the same movie to me. Overblown special effects with no plot, bad acting, bad dialogue, one-dimensional characters, and an uninspired score. Yep, that was the Star Trek I saw.
It is obvious that they shot this movie without a script. The film is actually pretty good until the midpoint, from then on out it is VERY BAD. I would have forgiven the boring middle-section if the ending was good. It is not. The ending of this movie is stupid and (worst of all) it ruins the first two films.
bhowie @ 1: Rodden-goggles
So, is this the Highlander 2 of the Terminator franchise?
Too bad. I expected this to be good and the new star trek to be bad. Looks like the opposite is true.
That’s unfortunate. It’s too bad they couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to the roots of the franchise. Something low budget-ish about the scrappy resistance fighters could’ve been really great.
And you were expecting great art? So what if it stinks, as long a CB is in it, I’ll watch it.
I thought Christian Bale was yelling at the DP in that clip.
Director of Photography != some lighting technician
@7: Way to apologize for the giant, expensive movie you haven’t seen yet.
@1 you must really hate Star Trek, since you wrote the same exact comment on the IO9 talk back.
I trust nobody’s eyes but my own, so i’ll be seeing this in spite of the nay sayers. I find it hard to believe it’s worse than T3!
Well that sucks, I’m a fan of apocalyptic and near-future scifi and was sort of looking forward to this.
You know, it happened to Jaws — great career-launching film turned into a cliché franchise. It’s been a tradition for summer blockbusters ever since.
@10: Good eye. I don’t really hate Star Trek so much as I hate shitty movies being lauded by the critics and the public. Part of it is stroking my contrarian ego, I will admit, but I would love for more people to demand better movies.
I have a rule and it has never led me astray: If The Strangers movie critics pan a film I usually enjoy it. This typical poor review of a summer action blockbuster simply encourages me further to go and see it. Thanks Paul!
I expect dogshit from the movies these days. TV shows are much better, and anyone who loved the first terminator and hated T2 and refused to watch anything beyond should check out the Sarah Connor Chronicles. It remedies all the stupidity of T2, and makes me glad I haven’t watched any of the movies after it. Summer Glau is so unbelievably hot as a soulless efficient killing machine. Netflix that, and avoid the movies other than the first.
It was a very disappointing movie. One word: Boring. Only slightly better than T3 because it had a better premise. Plot holes like Swiss cheese, bad lines, bad acting, cheesy, stupid terminators, 1 dimensional characters, boring action… I can go on. 28% on Rotten Tomatoes is about right.
Say what you will about the new Star Trek, but at least it was a fun movie. Terminator was just bleh.
Time travel…it’s the death of any plot sense. The first Terminator got away with it by having it happen exactly twice.
I loved that scene in the first terminator where arnold shwartzzzz makes the punkrockers give him their cloths.
I don’t get what the criticism is for. I had extremely high expectations going into this movie, and I wasn’t disappointed. I was at the edge of my seat the entire time. Could there have been improvements? Well yeah, but the same can be said about any movie out there. Altogether I thought this was a pretty well-done film and I’m glad I saw it before critics pooped all over it.
There was a Terminator wearing a bandana at one point. The director was taking the piss out of all of us and laughing all the way to the bank. This film was a joke…a very BAD joke.
There’s a Terminator wearing a bandana at one point. The director is totally taking the piss out of us and laughing all the way to the bank. This movie is a joke…a very BAD joke. Not even worth renting. Besides you can hear/see the techno remix of Bale’s rant for free on YouTube…it’s certainly more entertaining.
If you liked the other Xmen movies, then Xmen Origins:Wolverine, kicked ass. Most action movies have shitty dialouges, WTF? Why are you shitting all over these movies- Wolverine was awesome, Star Trek was good- Theres no way in the world that T4 will suck as much as T3. Its not possible. Do you suffer from Low T?
Nice review, Paul.
Saw the new Star Trek today – it doesn’t suck – not fantastic but solid. Better than I thought it was going to be. (Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think they threw in Scotty’s pet weird creature thing as a reference to some of the stupid StarWars characters just to piss off Lucas.) I knew something had to be up with T-4 when whats his face started throwing tantrums. But I never really thought the first couple were wonderful either…
x
WHY DOES A TERMINATOR WEAR A LITTLE STEVEY BANDANNA?!?!?!? JUMP THE SHARK!