Santikos Cine-opsis

*JT Street’s reviews are not the opinion of Santikos Theatres or anyone involved in the promotion or distribution of any of the films he reviews.  Santikos Theatres wants you to see this and all other movies that they offer.  Mr. Street is an independent critic with free license to speak his mind so that potential customers can make informed decisions about how to spend their time at Santikos Theatres.  Thank you, and enjoy your movie!*

“SALVATION” ONLY A DREAM FOR TERMINATOR FANS.

The End Begins...But When Will It End?

McG’s “Terminator Salvation” opens up in theaters (including Santikos’!) this weekend. And after “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”, I think we can all agree that the franchise needed a little salvation.  Well, after watching the latest epic battle between John Connor and Skynet’s self-aware steel soldiers, I can say that “Terminator Salvation” still needs saving…from itself.  And by itself, I mean the numerous cooks who stuck their greasy fingers in the pot and spoiled the franchise.

The movie feels like it’s missing something, and it is.   Scenes are spliced together in a way that doesn’t make sense and it jolts the viewer out of the narrative.  From what I understand from Slashfilm, McG was fighting with Warner Bros. in March to make “Salvation” an R-rated “bloodbath” (i.e.: geek hottie Moon Bloodgood topless in the rain).    Clearly, from the PG-13 rating and no “full Moon” in the film, McG lost the battle…and maybe the war as well.   After watching the screening on Monday, it’s clear to me that McG and friends didn’t have enough time after the dust settled to do a proper re-edit.  Scenes were obviously just cropped and saved for the director’s cut (which should be much better than the theatrical version, sadly).

But there’s plenty of blame for McG in here, too.  As the director, he could have used more draconian measures to get his R rating, or to try and delay the film’s release to give his editors more time to make sure that the final cut was something other than an incoherent mess.  Or. he could have just given Christian Bale and Sam Worthington better directorial cues than “just give each other a knowing head nod and– yeah, I know we just did that in the last scene, but do it again!  No, jus–  Christian, er, sorry, Mr. Bale, I–  Ok, listen, I’m– You know wh– Fine, we’ll do it your way!”

That would have helped.

But even as an incoherent mess (topped off with an unfortunate digital cameo towards the end that I won’t spoil here), “Terminator: Salvation” still manages to be far superior to “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines”, and more exciting than “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”.  McG’s chase scenes in particular are tremendous, and the action is clever and fascinating and innovative enough to forgive the film its trespasses and pay to see it on the big screen.  The scene with the crazy giant cannon-headed terminator thingy alone is worth at least five bucks.

The tone of the film is bleak and dark and tragic and all the things that you’d hope for in a movie about a hopeless war for humanity where the humans are on the losing side.  And yet, the film still manages to avoid wallowing in that, mostly due to the constant fear/anticipation of imminent Terminator attacks. And yes, the Terminator attacks are always imminent.

Still, there are other flaws in this film that are due more to sloppy writing and directing than sloppy editing.  The script has major defects, but that’s to be expected, since it was written by the same guys who wrote T3.  Sam Worthington’s character is the richest, and yet, the most flawed.  As an actor, he does a fine job, but there’s not enough there to make us believe his story.  Meanwhile, John Connor is either killing things, listening to tape-recordings of his mom’s voice, or laying down track for his post-apocalyptic CB podcast.  I guess, in this brave new world, that counts as a three-dimensional character.  Christian Bale has gone from playing characters with multiple personalities to characters with no personality.  Yet even his role is far superior to the roles given to Bryce Dallas Howard (fawning pregnant wifey Connor), Moon Bloodgood (non-topless fighter jock “independent woman” love interest), and Helena Bonham Carter (dying scientist turned into unknowing pawn of evil computer braintrust).  Those fine actresses were incredibly misused.

Oh, and on the unintentional comedy front, Michael Ironside is in this movie!  This proves that time travel does exist, and that McG used it to go back and film “Terminator Salvation” in the ’80s — Ironside’s natural habitat.

(Brief aside: Michael Ironside or Moon Bloodgood:  Who’s got the more awesome name? Discuss in the comments, please!)

Bottom line — it’s not salvation.  It’s not even purgatory.  But the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t, and I’ll take McG’s blurred vision over Jonathan Mostow’s blasphemy any time.  Maybe some new writers next time, McG?

Oh, on the sequel front, did you hear that McG wants to have Robert Patrick do a cameo in T5? Where the machine-war travels back in time to present day 2011?  Now, the real question is…who will save us from THAT future?