It the franchise dead? Terminated.

Saw T4 the other day. Orange 2 for 1. Good Times. 2 for 1 pizza at Pizza Express afterwards, even better times.

So T4. Terminator Salvation. The second (full length) trailer was a masterpiece. Just watch it. Just it, no real need to bother with the film. The coolest moments are there, and the music (NIN) is better than (usually good) Danny Elfman’s score. I was looking forward to this film so much. Not that it sucked, but it defiantly did not rock.

Lets break it down.

FX and production design:
Generally good if not mind blowing, with a couple of really shoddy moments. The GC/Kickinger Arnold was good, very good really, though not quite right. Also pretty pointless, but we’ll get to that. I thought Marcus was done very well, Dave wasn’t quite convinced by the face (I was) but we both agreed the body was cool.

Production design wasn’t bad, liked the T-600s, didn’t like Skynet Central much, liked some of the destroyed cities, though it was a little been there done that. Just like the whole movie in fact.

Script (not story):
Average to poor. Almost no character moments, nothing hair on the back of the neck stirring or ominous, far too many recycled lines from the first two. I mean really, what for? T2 took some iconic lines for T1, that was OK, T3 tried using them again, and it didn’t work. What make the writers think this was OK? Oh wait, I know. Some idiot hired the same guys who wrote the third one. Sure Nolan may have touched it up (not enough to get a credit). Fucking producers.

Acting:
Depends who we are talking about. Christian Bale (Connor) is OK, he may have been good, but he didn’t have a good script to work with, no character building, no good leader speeches. Moon Goodblood and the other resistance soldiers, standard over or under acted post apocalyptic soldier mode all the way. Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright however, was good. Even well written at times (I know!). More on Marcus later. Oh and Anton was OK as Reese, with a better script could have really bought him in that role.

And so to the story:
Not that good. Was there one? Not really. Sort of. There is a great story buried in there, the story of Marcus, but it wasn’t given the space or the good writing to shine. I have heard an internet rumour that Connor was originally a really small role, it was all about Marcus who the producers (remember them?) wanted Bale to play, but he wanted to play John Conner, so that part was written bigger for him. This seems believable as he isn’t really needed in this story, and does not grow or really face any life altering challenges.

Marcus – the terminator story that should have been. A man (former murderer we presume) who finds out he is a terminator, coming to terms with it though friendship with a resistance fighter (Reese), who eventually gives his life to save another. That is a good idea. Too much Conner screen time, Moon Goodblood’s nothing character, that damn kid (kept expecting her to say: “They mostly come at night, Mostly”), and the pointless not really explained presence of the T-800 (Arnold) killed it. I’m an Arnold fan, and if there had been a real reason for the CG cameo, I would have been over the moon, but it felt so forced.

Directing:
Poor. Sure there were some cool shots, I liked the look of the film, but it just didn’t flow. It barely stayed afloat. MCG clearly failed to see the great story in Marcus, and allowed it to become buried. Maybe it wasn’t his fault, but it certainly wasn’t mine. Also the end sucked. Almost every shot and idea (and production design for that matter) was nicked from the first two. There is subtle homage, and there is rip off. This was the latter. Oh and the Serena spoon fed info explanations to Marcus at the end both shit and not needed.

So a movie that could have been awesome turned into a run of the mill (thought not actually that bad) post apocalyptic movie. I put it on a similar footing to Kurt Russell’s Soldier. OK it’s a little better. See it, don’t see it, whatever, can’t tell if I liked this or T3 better. Definitely liked the ending of T3 better.