Possibly the most confused and dull film of the summer McG’s McTerminator starts in a blaze of boredom and carries the pace consistently. The film wasn’t particularly bad, it just wasn’t very much. At times the photography (and indeed editing pace) was wonderful, in spite of the fact that most of the idea’s were stolen from Alfonso Cuaron’s hugely under-rated Children of Men, and while it did stray into video game cut-scene territory on occasion one can’t deny the power that the closely shot, point of view cam styling emitted. Even if it was directed by someone that has the audacity to refer to themselves as a “McG”.

As a young boy I was a major fan of the second Terminator film. So much so that for my 11th birthday my father bought me a Kenner Terminator 2 Bio-Flesh Regenerator (See Here for pictorial evidence), which was a rather dubious gift for a 11 year old considering films 18 rating. Anyway, I loved the film as a kid, and upon my recent re-watching found that much of the magic remained (Here), yet there was one area of the film that struck my attention more than any other; the future war. In its brief outing in the first two films a war like no other was glimpsed. It was gritty, it was raw and it looked incredibly exciting to my young eyes. I have to admit to having fond  memories of those scenes especially, and feel that they are largely unique in terms of similar cinematic fare. In that respect Terminator Salvation, a film based solely around the future war should have been a done deal, yet in the hands of someone not only unsold, but downright unlikeable (professionally, based on his previous body of work) it proved to be a bit of an unenticing opportunity.

As we all know, this stage of the Terminator saga revolves around one person, and one person only; John Connor, saviour of the human race™/man’s final hope™/dystopian poster boy and all round cockaign Jesus Christ™. Alas, herein lies Terminator Salvation’s major problem; the film isn’t about John Connor! Christian Bale being cast as JC (see, I told you he was Jesus) was pretty much the sole reason for any form of excitement on my behalf for this project, yet it would appear that McG and company didn’t really see it that way.  Sam Worthington, as the Arnie-style Terminator mark 1 is given top billing alongside Bale, and while he’s perfectly adequate in the role, ultimately his character does seem a little moot, with the biggest crime being that he’s distracting. Bale is reduced to the role of worn out, grunting and grizzled hero, a man so angry with the fact that his superiors don’t take his prophecy seriously that he seems to have lost all sense of emotional decency. He spends his spare time frittering between his pregnant wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard, who spends much of the running time simply “being” pregnant, although in the final scene she does actually appear to do something) and studying the audio broadcasts left by his mother, the very-much-missed Sarah Connor (with Linda Hamilton actually providing the recordings). I guess therein lies one of the lacking aspects expected of the Terminator series, in that there isn’t an overtly powerful female presence. Hell, even Terminator 3 had the Terminatrix, and while Moon Bloodgood’s Blair Williams threatens to pull through initially, she soon falls back into the role of “cliched love interest”. The one member of cast that I was truly impressed by was Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, in a performance that channeled Michael Biehn’s turn in the first Terminator film in an eerily convincing manner. It’s just a shame that he, and indeed the rest of the cast, had such a terrible screenplay to work from. It’s genuinely awful, and embarrassing at times.

Time travel is always a major issue in a film series, and while I wouldn’t even so much as dare as to analyse it in any major way there was one thing that really bothered me. Apparently Skynet, the concurrent corporation that are the antagonistic backbone of the entire Terminator series want John Connor dead. Thats all well and good, but at the stage in the narrative that we are in the series, 2018 I think, how did they know that they want John Connor dead? Time travel has yet to be invented, so therefore the powers that be that know of Connor to be the one that brings down Skynet would have been unable to travel back in time to do anything about Connor, wouldn’t they?

I give up.

I guess for this sort of film it really is best just to sit back and take in the pretty explosions. Unfortunately thats not what I enjoy about cinema, so there is only a very small part of me that is remotely satisfied with Terminator Salvation. Alas if you like loud films that have little to no intellectual stimulation then you might take something home from this, if you prefer your action to have at least some semblance of competency or heart then you should probably just avoid.