When you’re three quaters of the way through a sequence in a movie - and you realise it’s the climax – it’s safe to say that someone - somewhere, somehow - is to blame for not giving you your 10 bucks worth.
Though it’s difficult to sit the (entire) blame squarely on director McG’s shoulders - I truly believe he set out to make the best possible Terminator movie he could. It’s evident in every frame of the painstakingly constructed, effects laden action sequences, the new terminators, vast, desolate landscapes, nods to the past films and the very special guest star cameo. I can imagine that little red-headed geek quivering with excitement at all the cool things he’s jammed into the film that ‘the fans are just going to go NUTS over!’
And it’s true - the Terminators new and old are beautifully done – steaming and hulking and racing around like they’re really there. The cameo mentioned is well done though a bit of a gimmick. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you see it. And McG certainly has an eye for action. While moments degrade into the rapid hyper-editing we’ve come to expect from blockbusters, these are rare with most of the set pieces well choreographed and quite exciting. The highway chase scene in particular stands out as a highlight and one of the better executed action sequences I’ve seen in quite a while.
The problem is I just didn’t give a shit.
While there is no pre-pubescent, squealing Eduard Furlong to endure - Christian Bale does a great job of showing no emotion what-so-ever, so much so I wondered why they didn’t cast HIM as the Terminator and give the part of John Connor to the more empathetic Sam Worthington. Bale as Connor, at one point is asked to call in on a radio and screams inexplicably into the radio at the top of his voice ‘HERE!’. This sums up his gruff, war-hardened hero and it’s nothing short of boring. Sam Worthington as the stranger Marcus, is better… marginally. They all try but are given very little to work with… though I’m not sure what drugs Helena Bonham Carter was into during the shoot because honestly, I’d rather witness my parent’s having sex that sit through anything she’s in ever again.
Let’s talk about story.
T1 – Terminator is sent back in time to kill the hero of the future resistance. A lone hero is sent back to protect him. Brilliant.
T2 – Same thing, with a twist. The hero this time is a re-programmed Terminator sent back to protect Connor from an even more advanced version. Also brilliant.
T3 – I actually prefer this movie to the fourth. It’s still terrible and very little of the money spent on it is visible on screen (unlike T4) – but it’s a simple story and despite it’s flaws we kind of care what happens to the protagonists. And the ending is brutally cool.
T4 – Present day: A man on deathrow, Marcus Wright, is inducted into cyberdyne systems as part of a research program. 30 years into the future he wakes up inexplicably during the resistance war and stumbles around for a while. He randomly meets Kyle Reece (who is the hero sent back in time to protect John connor in the first film). They track down John Connor for no real reason other than ‘we have to find that guy – he’ll know what to do’… do what? Reece gets picked up by Terminators though and shipped off to Skynet central. Marcus ends up finding John Connor… and also that he’s a terminator... Well Duh. Marcus has a case of the guilts and wants to show the world that machines have hearts too and sets out to find Reece. In the meantime the resistance has discovered that by tuning into the radio frequencies of the terminators they can deactivate them and they’re pretty keen to wipe Skynet out but John won’t have it because his dad is stuck there and he’s the ‘key to humanity’ so he makes a deal with the good terminator that when he finds his dad to give him a call and he’ll come and get him, but it’s a race to the finish because the resistance is going in, but they end up not going because it all turns out that the transmission signal was really a homing device so the terminators could destroy them, the good terminator Marcus was really a specially designed infiltration unit and that he was masterfully implimented in a diabolical plan to lure John Connor to the skynet base to kill him once and for all -
(gasps for air)
What?!
It’s so convoluted, so tedious, so tethered together with questionable, non-sensical motives that when the final ‘showdown’ between Connor and one of the T-800s takes place I was so uninterested that it wasn’t until I checked my watch did I realise we were in the final 10 minutes of the film and that this was the climax.
There’s potention for a decent sequel. Give it to McG again. Despite his name – no, just because you’ve been called McG since you were a kid doesn’t make it ok. I didn’t call myself Jackass – he can put together a decent action film. He just needs a decent script and we need someone to care about.
2 stars.
SAMMY- OUT!
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I agree -- McG's name is stupid! Nice review, man, you guys are HARSH!
Anonymous said...
August 15, 2009 at 2:48 PM