Alright, as always I went to see a film on my Neddy No No list, or as is relevant with this film my "No. NO! Don't Shut Me Up" List (Films that look awful over summer)
Obviously there are the films I will never see, Harry Potter, Ice Age, that malarky, but sometimes there are films that get good reviews and you kinda wanna see them even if they suck, Wolverine, Star Trek, and this one, Terminator Salvation.
So, lets begin with one thing, twice in the credits the name McG came up, both times I scoffed. I mean "A Film By McG"? Really? McGinty is bad enough, but McG? I mean, the writers did Catwoman with Pitof, did they think working with directors whose DGA card has more than 6 letters would be bad for their career? McG was alright with the Charlie's Angels flicks cos they were big dumb balls of fun, but this is Terminator, there's no time for humour, as the film is incredibly serious to the point of being annoyingly dull, so seeing his name there, well, it just doesn't make much sense.
The intro with Sam Worthington struggling to hide his Aussie accent with a gruff American one sets the scene for the struggle of dialect he faces over the film, and thanks to the trailers the shocking revelation that he was programmed to have trouble with the accents as a Terminator are ruined. In the opening scene Helena Bonham Carter's cancer-ridden doctor please for Marcus to give her his body after he is killed, the subtle dialogue reveals he is on death row for killing his brother and others because he informs her he did that incase she didn't already know, thank you.
He asks for a kiss in exchange for giving her his body, and claims it tastes of death, there's no effing point to this stuff whatsoever and do set the scene for some WTF at what point did Christian Bale say "Yeah this is a fucking good script, not unprofessional, I'm a nice fucking guy", and was it the re-writes where John Conner was added more, for no reason whatsoever really, that added this gunk too?
John Conner's character for the most part looks and speaks in a gruff Batman/Gran Torino style, and the action consists of one sequence near the start, then riding a motorbike Terminator, then a fight with Arnie and other robots. That's it, it's not about him, though he gets a lot of camera time for that.
It is after all about Marcus Wright, a way to get Sam Worthington famous before Avatar makes the scene in the winter, and his journey as a decent man given a second chance, and going against the pre-conceptions of robots, get it, the humans hate them but he's a nice one, Good Samaritan much?
So he helps people, including pilot Blair, played by Ewar Woowar wannabe Moon Bloodgood, mnbldgd?
He goes around battling things, being all good guy hero, then has the whole what am I, then has the whole, I'm not a robot, I'm a human being, incredibly predictable, but that's how these writers work.
Add to that this subplot of Conner and the Resistance finding a frequency that controls Skynet and using it for their advantage, 3 scenes, never anything more than one jet is used on, Kyle Reese played by Anton Yelchin, part of the Summer of Anton alongside his Chekov in Star Trek, who just does solid work as always in a thankless role with very little to do except exposition and running around. Bryce Dallas Howard is stuck being a pregnant doctor kissing Bale every so often and doing sod all else, and that's exactly what all the other actors do, they say some lines, stand in the background and aren't used again. Hell, Blair, after some action in the middle, is completely ignored.
The film has an odd feeling, the three act structure is clean and clear, but by the end it feels incomplete, yes it's aiming on another trilogy, two in one year for Yelchin, good work sir, but it'd have been nice to do some tidying up at the very least, not just exploding a San Fransisco factory as it's climax, maybe tie up the fighter piloting with the frequency, blare it out from up high to shut down terminators to allow the Resistance collect humans picked up by a harvester robot, not used much and given up on like all other parts of this film, for a Bale-Worthington third act.
Some of the action is cracking, and although there is never any sense that anyone will die at all in any way, the CGI and some concepts in the chases and the like are nice, of course come the up close Terminator/human fighting it's dull and feels like Transformers or Iron Man, nothing new like the whole film.
Editing is well done for the most part, some sped up moments look out of place in a comic fashion, the look of the film is saturated, and the twilight sequences feel very green-screeny, the lighting isn't noticeable, he clearly didn't trash any lights, and well, the sound, this is a separate paragraph.
Danny Elfman's score trudges along, he has to stick with pre-concieved themes, and uses some loud screechy instruments, but it's not much, he doesn't have any classic Elfman moments, and it just doesn't sound distinguishable or hummable like Transformers or Star Wars or his own Wanted last year, which was a nice score.
The sound design though, wow, lots of nasty metal scraping and gunshots, and whilst it starts off relatively quiet for an action film by the end it becomes ear-bleeding loud in a good way, in a 7.1 Blu-Ray pausing and rewinding to hear specific moments this soundtrack will be amazing.
It's just a shame that the acting is dull, the plot is flying around without giving much closure, the action whilst good isn't new and the pacing can be amazingly overlong at some points.
Though for a film I couldn't give a flying funk about it's done a good job to make me enjoy it.
7/10
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