June 4, 2009
The Terminator was ground-breaking cinema: it is still tensely enjoyable 20-something years on and its sequel T2:Judgement Day ranks among my top 5 action films ever. T3 was a bit of a let down, with slightly lazy writing and an unsubtle rip-off of its predecessor within its action scenes. So what should we expect from T4, or Salvation as the studio like us to call it?
First of all, it looks great, the CGI is fantastic and it is great to see real animatronics being used in a number of the scenes. Sam Worthington is clearly a star on the rise, Bale is a little pedestrian at times but is very solid as John Conner and Anton Yelchin is fantastic as Kyle Reece. The ladies involved do decent jobs but there is little for them to do in truth, though Moon Goodblood gets the most female screen time and is decent, but her presence highlighted one of my increasing issues with Hollywood. Why do these apocalypse survivors who eat “three day old coyote” all have immaculate pearly white teeth?!
What was disappointing is that the plot is non-existent for the first half of the film. We get glimpses into what may be about to happening but nothing else, until the revelations from Worthington’s Marcus Wright.
It's clearly a film designed to spawn sequels, and they have the potential to be fantastic films. This had good, strong action and big special effects, but it did not deliver the story we were promised. What made T2 so great was the human story going along with the action - that, for me, was lacking with this yarn.
I’m not a big fan of MCG as a Director, I find his shots predictable and felt there was little dynamism in the way we saw this world. There are a couple of unnecessary slow motions, and the constant ‘you're gonna jump now, just wait for it, HERE IT IS!’ becomes a little tedious and predictable.
It's good popcorn fodder, and perhaps I shouldn’t expect any more than that, but somehow after reading the hype and build up, I was.
***/5
First of all, it looks great, the CGI is fantastic and it is great to see real animatronics being used in a number of the scenes. Sam Worthington is clearly a star on the rise, Bale is a little pedestrian at times but is very solid as John Conner and Anton Yelchin is fantastic as Kyle Reece. The ladies involved do decent jobs but there is little for them to do in truth, though Moon Goodblood gets the most female screen time and is decent, but her presence highlighted one of my increasing issues with Hollywood. Why do these apocalypse survivors who eat “three day old coyote” all have immaculate pearly white teeth?!
What was disappointing is that the plot is non-existent for the first half of the film. We get glimpses into what may be about to happening but nothing else, until the revelations from Worthington’s Marcus Wright.
It's clearly a film designed to spawn sequels, and they have the potential to be fantastic films. This had good, strong action and big special effects, but it did not deliver the story we were promised. What made T2 so great was the human story going along with the action - that, for me, was lacking with this yarn.
I’m not a big fan of MCG as a Director, I find his shots predictable and felt there was little dynamism in the way we saw this world. There are a couple of unnecessary slow motions, and the constant ‘you're gonna jump now, just wait for it, HERE IT IS!’ becomes a little tedious and predictable.
It's good popcorn fodder, and perhaps I shouldn’t expect any more than that, but somehow after reading the hype and build up, I was.
***/5