"Terminator Salvation"

By David Hudson on 05/20/2009

[Updated through 5/21]

"In 'Terminator Salvation,' machines have exterminated most of humankind and run the planet; I think they made the movie, too. This isn't storytelling, it's programming - inorganic matter passing for life." David Edelstein in New York, where Logan Hill talks with Sam Worthington.

"Director McG, himself possibly named for the experimental prototype of a genocidal McDonald's sandwich, and trained in the art of narrative mess-making through music videos and 'Charlie's Angels' movies, reassembles this franchise of diminishing returns in an approximation of working order, but with some pretty essential-seeming parts (such as sense) left in a pile on the floor." Jonathan Kiefer: "Amidst all the shrapnel, Schwarzenegger does make a brief, mute appearance, and it looks like just another item on the homage checklist. See also: skulls getting crunched, catchphrases, big-rig chase scene, final battle in factory, etc. Under the circumstances, only cold comfort may be had from the lack of cutesy Edward Furlong banter."

"Both warning and advertisement, the 'Terminator' films are technophobic teases, selling tickets by promising this decade's model of killing machine," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice: "the classic V8 1984 Schwarzenegger; the bullet-streamlined, liquid-metal '91 Robert Patrick of 'T2: Judgment Day'; Kristanna Loken's 2003 T-X (with burgundy pleather upholstery).... 'Terminator Salvation,' a departure in many ways, is the first 'Terminator' with no upgrade. The hardware is clanky, and runs on diesel.... To hear director McG tell it, this is nothing less than Terminator Salvage, a mission to 're-establish credibility' (a/k/a consumer confidence). The obvious models are Chris Nolan's po-faced 'Batmans.'"

"Looks like all the trouble the Connor family got into fighting terminators over the years was for naught," notes Keith Phipps at the AV Club. "In the first three films and the recently canceled TV series, they battled robotic intruders - and an increasingly paradoxical timeline - to prevent a machine-dominated apocalyptic future, but 'Terminator Salvation' takes place after that apocalypse has already happened. That's the trouble with successful franchises: They keep on going long after the reason for going is gone."

"Christian Bale seems to think that growling all of John Connor's lines in his Batman voice will somehow persuade audiences that he's the savior of humanity," supposes Ed Champion. "Alas, it only reminds us how badly 'The Dark Knight' has aged just in the past eleven months."

"Sadly, people still listen to Guns N' Roses cassettes in the wasteland," laments Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out New York. "But missing is [James] Cameron's signature action modification, best exploited in 'Aliens': the strapping female heroine. McG's testosterone-juiced world feels a little doomed without her."

"'Terminator Salvation' changes around a few sets and redesigns the virtual nemeses, but otherwise it's the same mission, the same fight and the same inevitable outcome, carefully constructed to leave open the next chapter in the never ending franchise," sighs Sean Axmaker in the Seattle Post Globe.

"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," writes Paul Constant in the Stranger. "'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.'... There's no possible justification for taking a beloved sci-fi film franchise like this and just shitting banality all over it."

More from Chris Barsanti (PopMatters), Alonso Duralde (MSNBC), Mary Pols (Time), Andrew Sarris (New York Observer), Betsy Sharkey (Los Angeles Times) and Armond White (New York Press).

"Best and worst from the 'Terminator' movies." A list from Peter Hartlaub in the San Francisco Chronicle. Via Movie City News.

The AV Club lists "13 terrifying killer robots."

Online viewing tip. James Rocchi interviews Bale and McG for MSN.

Online viewing tips. "20 bitchin' robots" at DC's.

Updates, 5/21: "If not enough people buy tickets to 'Terminator Salvation,' we may never find out just how Arnold Schwarzenegger arrived in California," notes AO Scott in the New York Times. At any rate, this one "has a brute integrity lacking in some of the other seasonal franchise movies. It parades neither the egghead aspirations of 'Star Trek' nor the thick-skulled pretensions of 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine,' but instead feels both comfortable with its limitations and justly proud of its accomplishments. Among these are efficient, reasonably swift storytelling - the movie, less than two hours long, is densely populated with semi-important characters and crammed with exposition and incident, but it rarely feels busy or talky - and a mastery of the vernacular of chases, fights, explosions and crashes. McG may not yet have a signature style - he lacks the baroque vulgarity of Michael Bay ('Pearl Harbor' and 'Transformers') or the punchy inventiveness of Brett Ratner (the 'Rush Hour' movies and 'X-Men: The Last Stand') - but he manages speed, impact and the choreography of technomayhem with aplomb and a measure of wit."

"Speaking as someone who enjoys being bludgeoned into submission by summer movies," writes Slate's Dana Stevens, "I can't complain about 'Terminator: Salvation' on the grounds that it's too loud, too long, and too full of airborne fireballs and 50-foot-tall cyborgs. My complaint is that the fourth installment in the 'Terminator' series should have administered a more skillful drubbing to the senses.... A good summer movie isn't just an uninterrupted crescendo of cacophony. You need stuff in between the fireballs and the cyborgs."

"[W]hy would Skynet even commence with their eventual plans to attack the Connors in a different time, knowing as they must that such plans will fail?" wonders Ryan Stewart in Slant. "Another question: Why am I putting more thought into this than the screenwriters did?"

"The movie has the grace to acknowledge the looniness of its inherited premises," notes IFC guest critic Gene Seymour. "But that's where any notion of 'grace' reaches its end."

"McG and his screenwriters have taken the poetic ideas of the original story and fed them through a noisy meat grinder," writes Salon's Stephanie Zacharek. "The actors respond by doing little more than posing and posturing. Bale is so busy playing a quality - that's Mr Bravery to you, bub - that he doesn't bother to do the work of playing a character."

"Bale's vehemence suitably meshes with the apocalyptic landscape in which director McG has situated him," argues Nick Schager in Screengrab. "If only this were a '2001'-style commentary on mankind's devolution. 'Terminator Salvation,' alas, strives for bleak gravity with misguided fervor, dispatching the very traces of warm, generous humanity that, in Cameron's first two chapters, served as counterbalancing reminders of the necessity for staving off forthcoming mecha-Armageddon."

"This is the 'Terminator' film for a generation that expects over-the-top; an audience who likes it rough, but still PG-13, so we don't get carded at the door," writes Erik Davis at Cinematical, where Todd Gilchrist talks with McG - and examines the "Troubled Terminator Timeline."

Time's Lev Grossman presents "A Nerd's Notes."

More from Shaun Brady (Philadelphia City Paper), Peter Keough (Boston Phoenix), Andrew Pulver (Guardian) and Martin Tsai (Critic's Notebook).

[Photo: "Terminator Salvation," Warner Bros, 2009]

Tags: Christian Bale, McG, Sam Worthington, Terminator Salvation