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From the Past

Films on the to-do list

  • Armageddon Time
  • Black Widow
  • Chimes at Midnight
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer
  • Last Christmas
  • Remember Sunday
  • Shazam! 2
  • Thor: Love and Thunder
  • Spy Guys

Terminator Salvation (2009)

Film review: Terminator Salvation (2009), directed by McG

Continuing on the robot theme, we land in the 4th and final film in the rental pile. Now, I have actually seen some of the previous films. The only one I remember anything of the plot being the previous one with Claire Danes and a coffin full of guns.

Skynet is explained (thank you kindly!) as being an artificially intelligent defence system that developed a consciousness, and decided to self-preserve itself against the human race, who would probably like to destroy it. In the middle of all of this we find a resistance movement featuring John Connor (Christian Bale, who got into trouble for swearing at someone on set during the shooting of this film, as you may remember) and his pregnant girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard).

The movie is about them fighting Skynet, and in my opinion it ended with me saying “what do you mean, that wasn’t the final battle? You mean they’re going to drag out the franchise for years to come? Oh FFS!” So yeah, it felt a teensy bit pointless in that respect.

Oh, it focuses on John’s dad, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), who was a teenager or so here but apparently ends up in the past and getting chummy with Sarah Connor, and then there’s baby John. Skynet are trying to kill off Kyle, because then John will never be born and they’ll win by walkover.

The film starts out with a convict, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), agreeing to a doctor’s (Helena Bonham Carter in a small role) request for him to donate his organs. He agrees and then, later, he’s executed. My question there is that if he’s executed by lethal injection … is it wise to use his organs afterwards? I mean, won’t they contain poison? Anyway. He wakes up in 2018 and tries to fend for himself, and meets Kyle and the resistance and wants to help, but there’s more to him than first meets the eye, and it’s so blatantly obvious what it is straight from the bat.

There are explosions. Common theme, that. It’s the movie I enjoyed most, after Inglorious Basterds, because it had some plot, some action, some heart and even some brains. I can’t compare it with the other films in the franchise, because, like I said, I’ve not really paid any attention to them. Like, the guy from the second film – to me he’s “the guy who sort of took Mulder’s place for a bit on The X-Files“, not a killer robot.

Arnie made a cameo of sorts in the robot factory, but he was all CGI, as he looked a lot younger than he is nowadays. It was a “hey look, there’s the prototype of the robot from the first film!” moment, which was fun. There’s just something about resistance fighting that’s quite appealing, so thumbs up for this movie. At least Christian Bale gets to use a normal voice, and not that weird Batman voice.

3.5 out of 5 dystopian futures?

Traxy

An easily distracted and over-excited introvert who never learns to go to bed at a reasonable time. Enjoys traveling (when there's not a plague on), and taking photos of European architecture. Cares for cats, good coffee and Boardwalk Empire. A child of her time, she did media studies in school and still can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

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