Terminator: Stalevation

It is time for me to weigh in on Terminator: Salvation, and it is a difficult task. I had such high hopes for this movie, due in no small part the brilliance of the trailers released. This trailer in particular gave me goose bumps every time I watched it.

I was hoping for an alternate future, different from the one we’ve already seen (from which T-1000 and T-X come back from the future to kill Connor.) I had thought that the character Marcus Wright would be a more advanced terminator: living organs in addition to living tissue, undetectable to dogs (a flaw of the T-800 series), and unaware of his own nature. A subtle sleeper cell of one. When it became apparent that he was a precursor to the Arnold-model, I was dismayed to realize that this story was right in line with existing plotlines of the existing Terminator-movie universe.

Adherence to canon aside, there was plenty of room for more disappointment – in the characters, shallow and underutilized. In the plot, holed and fragmented. In the Terminators themselves. In Michael Ironside, for captaining a submarine, again.

In The Terminator, Kyle Reese is dreaming/remembering the future from which he was sent. It is disjointed, cacophonic, and terrifying. It made the viewer feel helpless – what could one do against those towering, mechanical monsters? That feeling of helplessness continues throughout the film, as the T-800 stalks Sarah Connor, through shootouts, explosions, and fire, stopping only when terminally crushed in an industrial press.

Terminator: Salvation never made me feel that sense of urgency or of helplessness. In fact, it went too far the other way, providing the resistance fighters with an unexpected and unprecedented level of military infrastructure and weaponry. I never felt afraid for any of the characters.

Much symbolism was made of the fact that Marcus Wright was once human and currently is in possession of a functioning, living heart. In fact, this character reads like a personal ad. “Good-looking bad boy hoping for a second chance. Good heart, but emotionally unavailable. I can be your Mr. Wright.” He is unaware of his machine nature, and has convinced others of his humanity. Even when he learns he is a machine, he still behaves as though he is human, and as we’ll soon see, his heart is both his downfall and his salvation.

John Connor, the heart of the resistance, makes a decision based on (say it together now) his heart and refuses to engage in a course of action his superior officers have planned. Why? To save the people being held prisoner in Skynet’s San Francisco base. If the humans fighting the war become like machines, what’s the point? Now there’s some philosophy for us to digest while the movie moves forward into the final scenes.

The problem is that it doesn’t add anything to the film. It simply serves as the causality for John Connor to meet Kyle Reese and for Skynet to explain to Marcus Wright (and by association, the viewing audience) everything that was pretty obvious by that point in the film.

As predictable as it is unfortunate for Skynet, Marcus chooses to reject his programming, ie, his orders, just as John Connor rejected his. He goes with his heart and saves the day and himself in the process. (See, kids? Disobey and succeed. Obey and die.) He, as the Terminator, is the Salvation for humanity, and yet he, a Terminator, finds Salvation himself! Hooray! There’s a word to describe this titular scenario, but I can’t think of it. Oh, wait, that word is LAME.

I give it 2 out of 5 Babbles

Haiku Review

Fourth in the series
Highly anticipated
How disappointing.

Deus ex machina
Definition (from Wikipedia): A deus ex machina (pronounced /ˈdeɪəs ɛks ˈmɑːkinə/ or /ˈdiːəs ɛks ˈmækɨnə/,[1] literally “god from the machine”) is a plot device in which a person or thing appears “out of the blue” to help a character to overcome a seemingly insolvable difficulty.

The exercise left to the reader is to count the number of times McG uses this device in the film.

Songs that Should Have Been in the Movie:
Pink Floyd – Welcome to the Machine
Flight of the Conchords – The Humans are Dead
Styx – Mr. Roboto

Known Terminators:

T-600 – Shoots first and doesn’t ask questions.
T-800 – Shoots after asking if you are Sarah Connor. (Survival tip: Say no.)
T-1000 – Stabs you after attempting to sell you DirecTV.
T-X – Vaporizes you after you ask her for her phone number, but it was worth the try.
T-Pain – Shoots music videos.
T-Rex – Eats you.

Not Even J.C. Can Save Terminator…

Terminator Salvation
The fourth installment of the Terminator Series, this movie takes the plight of mankind into the post apocalyptic future as they are now caught in a desperate struggle for survival against the dreaded machines and Sky Net. Unfortunately, this movie is in as much need of salvation as mankind is. To make matters worse, not even J.C. can save them. Yeah, John Conner, who else would I mean? The story follows the hero’s struggle to rally the resistance and destroy Sky Net while being confronted with the first human looking Terminator made. Maybe it was predestined to be bad because I would hate to think anyone would choose to make it so.

 This movie has more plot holes then a cemetery. To make matters worse, the world just isn’t consistent with the future that had been established in the first two. It’s seem like a Terminator movie is almost a sure fire hit, yet director McG leaves us scratching our heads, asking questions and calling for J.J. Abrams by the end of it.

Such questions like, “Why is Dallas Bryce Howard pregnant?”, “How many helicopter crashes can you really survive?”, “Why is Sky Net so unguarded?” and “How much longer will this last?” My biggest complaint is the story telling. Near the end of the movie an image of Helen Bonham Carter appears and explains half of the plot. This is horrible story telling that every director should avoid. You are supposed to show, not tell, the plot, and if you have to fall back on a lengthy monologue to explain it then you have failed as a story teller.

The special effects were fine and some of the action scenes were pretty good, but in this day and age, every movie has good special effects and it is not enough to carry the movie.

The Babe factor wasn’t even that high either. I would give it a three out of five. The main girl was a hot pilot chick that we never really get to know or understand, and who all but disappears later on.

As a whole I give this two Babble’s and a save it for a rental when your girlfriend (if you have one) is out of town.

I give it 2 out of 5 Babbles

Salvation from what?

Early morning today, I dragged myself to the movie theatre to see Hollywood’s claimed ‘reboot’ of the Terminator franchise – Terminator Salvation. Going in wtih extremely lowered expectations, I thought I was prepared to watch a mediocre popcorn flick. With the pressure of producing a great terminator film, the final product just didn’t have enough at stake for the audience to grow attached to the characters of the movie. It lacked an emotional element that was replaced with silly chase sequences, explosions, and terrible hand-to-hand fights with robots.

My biggest complaint was that I simply did not care for the characters. Who was responsible for the character development? As an actor, understanding character choices is always important to what drives a story forward. Studying the psychology behind John Conner, Marcus, and Blair Williams would have better informed their choices and created a more coherent flow for the film. I found myself yearning to see this ‘human spirit’ that John Conner claimed the machines did not have. I just didn’t see it.

The movie fails in so many ways to answer the viewer’s simplest questions about what is going on in the film and leaves them with no reason to empathize with any of the characters. ‘Why are the machines harvesting humans?’, ‘How are the humans a threat to the machines?’, ‘Why weren’t the machines using biological weapons against the humans?’, ‘How are giant robotic machines able to sneak up on humans with incredible stealth?’, and ‘Why was it so easy for Marcus to access Skynet, find Kyle Reese, and allowed to choose to fight against the machines?’ It also misses on making us feel absolute dread. James Cameron’s vision in the original films painted the future of a diminishing human race that brought chills every time the original score pumped in through the entire movie. McG is unsuccessful in recreating this sensation, a feeling that the world is at the brink of mass genocide.

By the end of the movie I was wishing I could terminate myself with no chance of salvation.

I give it 1.5 out of 5

Terminator: Salvation

Losing my Terminator salvation…

I succumbed to the hype to go see Terminator: Salvation over the weekend. For the two or three of you that have never heard of Terminator, Salvation is about the future war against machines and one man’s journey to be the salvation of mankind.

Let me start by saying that T1 and T2 had a huge influence on me when I was a younger. Nothing was cooler than a robot coming from the future to assassinate a future hero. Arnold’s role as the T-800 has to be one of the most iconic pop culture symbols of the 20^th century. Because of Director James Cameron’s vision of T2, it has become one of the most celebrated sci-fi movies of all time.

With that being said, I was far from satisfied after seeing this sophomoric addition to the series. The visuals were fantastic and Christian Bale did the best he could with what he had. However, the Director’s (McG) storytelling of the movie was clumsy, fragmented, and illogical. This movie suffered from what I call the ‘dot-to-dot’ syndrome. McG had in mind several main points that he had to hit and it was obvious how he was going to connect them- it was like connecting dots. No real surprises and very predictable. Many prequel type movies fall to the ‘dot-to-dot’ syndrome like Wolverine and the Star Wars prequels. A select few do not like Star Trek and the new Batman series. While not a prequel, T4 is in the same category of needing to ‘fit’ into an existing storyline. The only thing redeeming about the movie was a few cool action scenes and the appearance of a key cameo. Other than that, I thought McG really ‘terminated’ my appreciation for the series and my opinion of his directing chops. It is beyond my comprehension how you have so much source material and still can’t get a 4^th sequel right. *sigh*.

I hope no one tries to save this reality of Terminator with another hack director. It will need the visionary direction of an extremely talented director before I say‘I’ll be back’.

I give it 2 out of 5 Babbles: