Terminator Salvation Review or: Why T2 is the Greatest Movie Ever

Terminator Salvation is 2 hours of post-apocalyptic human versus Machine warfare, and yet the size and scope never achieves what James Cameron did in that two minute and thirty-four second Judgment Day battle scene before the title sequence.

Spoilers ahead…

Terminator Salvation enjoys showing off its eye candy, and this is why the movie is needlessly fat. This is apparent from the start. The opening title sequence with its colossal block letters sliding across the background is a variation of the first movie’s sequence. Yet whereas its end is the title reveal, Salvation indulges in two grand openings – one in the same size and font as the credits and the other a pull-back of the block letters. Why do something twice when once will do?

Is this being picky? Of course. But sloppy is sloppy, and the movie never stops to clean itself up.

Let’s start with a sampling of inconsistencies before getting to the meat of the review. Little girl Star – or as I’m sure what the writers called her in the first draft, Early Warning Detection System – is able to hear or feel the vibrations of Machines. When the camera cuts to her stunned expression, get ready for some action. She is able to hear that spy Machine which is the size of a frisbee, but absolutely nobody can hear the Harvester stomp up to the gas station until it punches through the roof?

Or what about the lazy editing? The scene where John gets on the radio to convince the Resistance to delay bombing Skynet; it steadily gains momentum and then all of a sudden cuts off as quickly as John ends transmission. And the subsequent scene of Christian Bale delivering THE line that defines the Terminator franchise feels like a rehearsal take. AND the following scene begins with another nod to a previous Terminator movie. This is an excessive and poorly paced sequence. It feels like there were either extended or extra scenes removed for the theatrical release, and I’m not sure if I care enough to rent the DVD to find out because even if a director’s cut puts back the scenes, they won’t save the movie.

So why does this movie fail to entertain? Some of the credit goes to the character of Blair, played by Moon Bloodgood. She is a cliche: the survivalist that has to be rescued from horny savages, the heroine who falls for her rescuer – in a scene where she intimately embraces him so that they can keep warm through shared body heat. Good lord.

The relationship she forms with Marcus Wright is the passionate part of the movie – Connor is already married to Kate, who has about as much purpose as the movie’s title appearing twice, and Connor doesn’t meet Reese until the end. Perhaps Blair would have served better as the character who simply detours Marcus to the Resistance base instead of being the love interest. Blair is an artificial sweetener.

Salvation could have been a popcorn flick (like Die Hard or Taken) yet it takes itself seriously, making its characters announce to the audience the theme through idiotic dialogue and laughable scenes.

And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why Skynet had to use Reese as bait. To kill John Connor? But if Reese dies, doesn’t that prevent John from sending him back? Wouldn’t killing Reese kill John? And how exactly would John die? Slumps to the floor? Fades away? What happens to Kate and her baby? Do they cease to exist also?

And this here is my problem with the Terminator franchise. The story falls apart when you start to show and analyze what happens during Judgment Day. And at the same time this is the beauty of Cameron’s Terminators, especially the second one. Yes, the movie is scifi action-adventure, but the genre is only the setting for a story about the value of human life. And even with the scifi and time travel elements, Cameron focused on one aspect so that he could tell the most interesting story. Not a story about a post-apocalyptic or temporal war but a story about how a boy has to become a great military leader and how he teaches his Machine to be human. “If a Terminator can learn the value of a human life, maybe we can too.”

T2 isn’t a great movie just because of its message and how it’s framed. Cameron’s sequel is a fantastic action movie because it is lean, because every bullet, explosion, and collision has a purpose. There is no excess, there are no twists. Look at the structure of T2. The first half hour sets up the major characters and their agendas: the T-800 has to find and protect John; the T-1000 has to find and kill John; John wants to rescue his mother; and Sarah wants to prevent Judgment Day. We get all this upfront so that the rest of the movie can focus on the trio of good guys and deliver a third act composed entirely of one action scene. Since there are no mysteries – like Marcus Wright – there doesn’t need to be coy and convoluted setups that as a consequence will make the audience analyze the film and find details to tear apart.

Not only is the action in T2 clearly defined, they are also framed in a specific way. Again, look at the structure of T2, only this time focus on the choreography of the action. How many melee scenes are there between human and Machine? Two – versus the bikers, versus the Pescadero employees. But more importantly, none were between the major cast of characters, and the reason is that in such an exchange, the Machine will always win. Arnold breaks the biker’s hand without so much as twitching. Arnold breaks open doors by pushing them. Young John is able to call his foster parents because Arnold uses his hand to smash quarters out of the pay phone. So why does the T-800 in Salvation have such a difficult time killing John? Why does it resort to tossing him around? Why doesn’t it simply grab John and cave his face in? Going hand-to-hand against a Machine is the equivalent of letting go of the dryer while taking a bath. James Cameron knows this, and it’s why he never wrote a situation where the human will out-punch a Machine (look at what happened to Reese at the end of the first Terminator).

And putting aside logic, the Terminator throwing John around the factory is just not exciting. Neither is the way he gets the scar on his face.

There is a reason Sam Worthington shares space with Bale above the title. The story of Salvation is more his than Bale’s, and Worthington is the best part of the movie. His performance is strong; he is charismatic, able to convey the right amount of emotion through dialogue and facial expressions. He can be a powerful presence (scene where he is chained up and talking to Bale), and he can display desperation – when Bale growls “what are you,” Worthington responds with a convincing helplessness: “I don’t know.”

I didn’t have a problem with Marcus as the main character, but I felt Connor’s story was underwhelming. I had been under the impression (as in I vaguely remember reading this in an interview) that John’s purpose in this movie is to prove that he has the knowledge and skills to lead the Resistance. And I guess to a point they do get into this territory, but the way it’s executed with the cliched military leader (General Ashdown played by Michael Ironside) unwilling to listen to the advice of his officer, it’s more like the writers got us here by sleepwalking.

And while I never cared for Kate’s character in Terminator 3, there was an opportunity in Salvation for her to be the welcome constant in John’s life, for her to be his last thought at the end of the day.

But instead the intimacy is placed between Marcus and Blair. Because as a plot device to help him escape the Resistance base? Yes, unfortunately. And because at the end of the movie Marcus finds redemption, and the best way to milk the scene is to have Marcus and Blair stare lovingly into each others eyes and cry tragedy while the rest of the cast watch so they too can have their eye-fucking moment with the hero. It’s so goddamn cheesy. Not only that, the message of that scene is a giant curd; whereas in T2 “the Tin Man gets his heart,” Salvation’s gives up his to save John Connor.

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*the quotations in the last line is James Cameron’s, from the book Four Screenplays (Syd Field, 1994). the full quote: “Essentially you’ve got a character associated with being the quintessential killing machine; that is his purpose in life. Devoid of any emotion, remorse, or any kind of human social code, he suddenly finds himself in the strangest dilemma of his career. He can’t kill anybody, and he doesn’t even know why. He’s got to figure it out. He’s got to, because he’s half human. And he figures it out at the end. The Tin Man gets his heart.”