We know everything that’s happening even if we don’t know why. It’s a terrific bit of movement that follows three distinct series of action while telling a wordless narrative. The camera pitches left to a formation of landing helicopters that have their men jump and immediately run right, swing us back to the first direction and the incoming chopper of John Conner. On the ground are Terminators and mounted cannons all sending up a bright white volley of defense as jets swing into to lay down more hell. Terminator Salvation, 2009 © Columbia Pictures McG begins the sequence with a POV shot of a missile tracking its target along the desert floor, barely skipping over the numerous pits and peaks before slamming into a satellite dish, the fireball triggering the fight. Okay, so let’s rewind a bit and marvel at the little string of action that got us here. He then snakes his way with a team through some water soaked tunnels to eventually find they aren’t alone in the abyss. In a flash, he’s in the fight and makes his way to deep cavern left exposed in the combat, leaping into the air on a bungee cord before coming to a stop well below the surface. Up then goes the camera and we see Connor in a hero shot and the sound of an unseen grunt shouting over the headsets: “Connor is on the ground.” Terminator Salvation, 2009 © Columbia Pictures The helicopter landing skid settles right on the machine’s head in close up as a man’s boot steps off and the firing end of a machine gun swings into view before laying a few rounds into the robot’s skull. One of these choppers lands right on the fallen chassis of a destroyed Terminator, its flesh burned off and metal face scarred in black. A large array of satellite dishes lie in ruins and a column of Resistance combat helicopters make their may into the mayhem to drop off streams of eager fighters. There are jets zipping about and myriad explosions leaving plums of dark smoke trailing into the air. But what I like most is this early scene that serves as an introduction for Connor, showcasing the best of what McG has on tap for innovation and twisting the expectations of who we think Connor really is.Īfter a brief setup that sets the stage for Marcus’ fate, we learn of an attack on a Skynet base. Worthington is great as are some of the visual effects and battles. No matter the outcome and the obvious missteps the film takes, delivering a well-made but emotionless experience that sort of mechanically offers up a perfuctory Terminator film, there are good things to be found. Meanwhile, from that factory emerges a man named Marcus ( Sam Worthington), a human-machine hybrid who doesn’t know he’s half man. Here, he makes a startling discovery – human prisoners are at Skynet and there plans to use their DNA and tissue as part of the new line of robot Terminators, called T-800s (the very machine made famous by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first movie). It stars Christian Bale as the John Conner, a name very familiar to those who know the Terminator story, he the son of Sarah Conner and leader of the resistance. Basically, it focuses on the need for humans to come together and fight Skynet, an artificial intelligence system that has decided humans need not apply. It’s set in the year 2018, fourteen years after all the chaos that happened in 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. So it was in 2009 when director McG took to helming the lastest, the movie taking a bit of a departure from the others in tone and theme, looking to tell a more gritty, grounded story with less scale and more impact. It’s a daunting task, and clearly one that no one seems able to get right, even if most are generically entertaining on their own. Every film since has had trouble juggling the time travel properly while looking to expand the universe in explaining how the characters developed and why. The Terminator series hasn’t had all the much success in doing the franchise proper since its groundbreaking first sequel in 1991, seven years after the original. Terminator Salvation is a 2009 action film about a mysterious new weapon in the war against the machines, half-human and half-machine, that arrives to help in the resistance against Skynet.
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