Could you imagine what a Star Wars movie would be like without any involvement from George Lucas? Cynics might blissfully recall that its already been made i.e. The Empire Strikes Back. Even then, Lucas received story and producing credit, was on-set everyday, and all creative decisions were ultimately his to make. Think about it. If someone on-set needed to quickly know whom Chewbacca’s first cousin once removed is, only George Lucas would have the answer. Few film franchises are as dependent on one creative mind, but to quote Yoda: “There is another…” What George Lucas is to the Star Wars saga, James Cameron was to the Terminator series. Terminator: Salvation only reaffirms what we all knew after 2003’s disastrous Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Thankfully, Salvation is a major improvement over the last installment, however it doesn’t come close to approaching the perfect balance of the first two entries. The Terminator and T2 blew audiences away with rough-and-tumble action draped with a plethora of philosophical mindbenders that would keep Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche pondering for years. Jim Cameron’s vision for the first two films was so whiz bang that he was smart to quit while he was ahead. Perhaps he knew that the Terminator storyline was finished after Judgment Day and any more would be gratuitous. Conversely, Warner Brothers didn’t see it that way and have left the door open for two Salvation sequels.
Enough pandering, lets get down to specifics. Terminator: Salvation takes place in the post-apocalyptic future, in the midst of the war between machines and humans. John Connor (Bale) is a crucial member of the human resistance. If you recall, Connor is the Christ-like human figure and supposedly the only hope for defeating the machines. For the first time in the Terminator series, we see that Connor has a wife, with a child on the way. Other familiar faces include a teenaged Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and a brief appearance from Arnold himself (thanks to the magic of CGI). The most fascinating character of the bunch, however, is new. Marcus Wright (Worthington) is introduced to the audience as a convicted murderer in federal prison, but instead of serving out a life sentence decides to donate his body to science. The film opens with Wright making this pivotal decision in the present day, and then jumps to the future where we pick up Connor’s storyline. When Wright suddenly appears in the future, not having aged a day, and with no memory of what’s happened to him during the previous twenty years, the film kicks into gear. Wright sets off on a mission to find out the truth, and in the process stumbles across Connor and Reese, whose fates are coincidentally tied to together.
Even though Bale gets top billing, he doesn’t do much except for grunt and groan. The character most people want to see is Reese and what he was like in his youth, but the screenplay curiously brushes him aside. Ultimately, Reese is woefully underused as a plot device to connect Connor and Wright. The film seems to divvy up screen time among the three protagonists and the result is that none of the characters are fleshed out. Salvation is like the first 1/3 of a screenplay. The basic premise exists, but nothing gets going and there is certainly not much of a payoff for the audience.
McG (yes, that is the director’s credited name) actually has good intentions. He has deep respect for the material, as evidenced by numerous homages to Cameron’s films (“I’ll be back!” is back again) and the fact that the Terminator mythology appears to sync well with past films. McG’s only fault is that he fails to push the series forward from what we’ve seen already in the epic war against machines.
Remember the now infamous on-set Christian Bale rant leaked last fall? The media was told by insider sources that it occurred while shooting the most emotionally intense scene in the film. Considering all the Terminator crewmembers who came out to defend Bale’s explosive outburst, you’d think they were making a drama on par with Schindler’s List. After seeing Salvation I can honestly say I have no idea which scene they were shooting when Bale went wild, since there really isn’t any scene that warrants the raw energy Bale let loose on-set.
Overall, Salvation is a movie that seems to be missing something…like half the script. The action sequences suffice. Christian Bale and Sam Worthington seem relatively interested in making the film work. What dooms Salvation is a severe lack of the aforementioned perfect balance. The enthusiasm for the material is there, but the story isn’t. Maybe its time to mimic what James Cameron tried to do to the series after T2: Judgement Day: terminate it.
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