Originally written May 30, 2009

I like the Terminator movies, always have. I thought it was an interesting sci-fi series. However, to me, it was always like Arnold Schwarzenegger is what MADE the movies, so when I first heard that he wasn’t even in this one, I was sketchy. I honestly thought it was going to suck. But alas, being a Terminator fan…I had to see it.

It’s very hard to explain the plot of the Terminator movies, simply because the timeline is so screwed up. The first three films had a lot to do with time traveling elements, and although Salvation does away with this, it still makes the timeline hard to follow. So, in a sense, Salvation is both a prequel and a sequel to the other three films. In the plot of this film, the corporation Skynet has destroyed much of humanity through a nuclear holocaust, and now a group of survivors known as the resistance, led by the infamous John Connor (played by Christian Bale), are struggling to try and stop the machines from killing off the rest of humanity.

I found it odd that the advertisements for Salvation showed John Connor so much, because honestly he’s barely in the movie, especially for the first half or so. Sure, it does show how he became the leader of the resistance, but the movie isn’t really about him. Salvation shows us not only the origins of Kyle Reese (played by Anton Yelchin), a main character from the first film), it mainly focuses on Marcus Wright (played by Sam Worthington), who is a completely new character to the Terminator franchise. Although I thought this was an odd decision to make him the main spotlight, I’m also very happy that they did, because I thought he was the most interesting character of the whole movie. I certainly enjoyed parts with Marcus in it rather than the parts with bland John Connor.

I didn’t think the story of it was anything over the top, however I did think it was good enough. The movie has great pacing, though. I never really felt like there was a slow moment in the movie. I was actually expecting more action than I wound up getting, but even then, it wasn’t boring.

Also, there’s another thing. The action scenes were great. It was a pretty intense, and I thought everything with the special effects and all were done very well. There’s explosions abound, and there’s quite a few moments in the film where you’re probably going to yell out something like “Oh snap!” (or something else more vulgar).

One more thing, I have to say that I thought the movie was filmed beautifully. The shots are done very well, and the movie has an overall very dark and gritty sort of feel to it, which I felt was captured very well. Great cinematography.

All in all, I thought Terminator Salvation was pretty great. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve watched the other Terminator movies, so I can’t really compare right now. However, considering I thought this one was going to completely suck, it has far exceeded my expectations, and I’m glad I went to see it. Even though I kind of see it as a love it or hate it movie…I loved it.

4/5 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: For starters, I want to apologize for how this review is written. I wrote it over 10 years ago, when I was first starting to write reviews. I know my writing has definitely improved since then, so I apologize for how awkward some of the writing sounds here. However, the big problem I have with this review is actually that I’m not sure how true it still rings for me. This is one of those weird examples of a movie that I apparently loved when I first saw it (according to my glowing review of it here), but that in the years since I haven’t really remembered it very fondly. This is strange because I’ve never rewatched Terminator Salvation since I originally saw it, but I also think it speaks volumes that I haven’t really had the desire to rewatch it either. In the past, I’ve re-written reviews for movies when my opinion changes on them, but since I haven’t seen Salvation in over 10 years, I don’t feel like it would be fair to do. If I ever do rewatch it I may revisit this review, but for now these were my thoughts the last time I watched it. I don’t remember much of anything from this movie, so I can’t even really speak to anything in particular about it at this time. Regardless, I just wanted it to be clear that this review reflects my views on Terminator Salvation when it came out, but not necessarily how I feel about it in the years that have followed.