Terminator Salvation!

I liked Terminator movies. The first one was a heady blast of sci-fi and action, with a clever mystery and a juicy time-travel twist. I like time travel stories in general and the first Terminator was a good one, with lots of shootin' and fightin' mixed in. The relentless nature of the machine determined to complete its programmed assignment is truly frightening. There's no reasoning with the Terminator, it does what it does out without malice, there's no blame to attach despite the crimes it commits. But there's likewise no stopping it, at least not very easily. The sequels added neat twists to the tale, but neither captured the sheer cool factor of the original despite their many virtures as action movies. The time travel storyline got more complex, but not to the point that I found it confusing.

The latest one wasn't necessary to advance the story, but it does so neatly. Getting to the war was required at this point. What makes this one work, is that despite cleverly paying tribute to particular moments from the previous movies, especially the first one, this one doesn't allow itself to become merely a reworking of old tropes. The new darker setting gives the action a ferociousness, and the action is hard and fast. If anything there's almost too much action and not enough mood, but that's always tradeoff in these kinds of flicks.

The real pleasures in this movie is that at last we move beyond the persona of Arnold Schwarzenegger and advance the franchise into broader waters. Don't get me wrong, Arnold is fabulous in the movies. But one more movie with him doing his tried and true Terminator thing would've been dull. Sam Worthington as the latest model is a new kind of machine and changes the status quo bringing an upredictability to the franchise not seen since the twist in the first sequel when we learn that Arnold's Terminator is there to save John Connor and not to kill him. This is a new way of seeing these machines.

The story is a complicated one, but holds together just enough to keep me following it. Christian Bale is an actor who fascinates me, and his take here on the resistance leader who knows the future is remarkable. At the end of this movie, we are pretty much full circle on the series having reached the point where Skynet will likely feel the need now to send the first Terminator to kill Sarah Connor. So the story can end here and I'm fine. It's a cool tale all told, with a clever idea underneath and some dandy action throughout.

I really enjoyed this movie.

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