The Terminator franchise is based around an erroneous sense of time travel, and a mind numbing predestination paradox. John Connor has to exist. In order for himself to exist, he must send his young father, Kyle Reese, back in time to protect his mother, Sarah Connor. Not only must Reese go back to keep Connor alive, but he also must sleep with Sarah and become John’s father so that John can exist. Don’t think about it too much, because it actually doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. However, if you’re able to suspend your disbelief, it makes for a rather engrossing plot point.
After James Cameron’s two ground-breaking films (The Terminator, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day), Warner Bros. took over the franchise and delivered a third, almost campy Cameron-less Terminator film. While mildly entertaining, the third film veered very far from the tone and quality of the previous movies. I’m sure if Warner Bros. could go back in time to terminate the third film before being made, they would. While time travel isn’t yet possible, the popularity of reinventing movie franchises seems to be at an all time high. So, how do you reinvent a classic franchise? Re-write history! Oh, and add Christian Bale.
Bale, (who was hired to help fix Batman’s movie history, too) was brought in to play an older, battle hardened John Connor. Bale seems almost perfect for the role of as war torn, terrified, but strong willed Connor. He definitely brings more punch to the role than Stahl did as a very depressing Connor in the third film, but there is nothing even resembling the humor that Furlong did.
This is the first film in the franchise that doesn’t directly deal with the time travel aspect. Still, we’re seeing characters at older ages for the first time ever in this series. This means that you can more easily believe that these are the same characters we’ve seen before. We see John Connor, who should now be aged to about 30 years old. Which despite Bale looking nothing like Eddie Furlong or Nick Stahl (the previous actors to play Connor), it’s not totally impossible that he would look this way. We also see Kyle Reese played by Anton Yelchin. Now, Yelchin isn’t a ringer for Michael Biehn, but this is supposed to be Reese as a teenager, versus a middle aged adult. So, again, it’s not totally inconceivable.
The rest of the characters are series firsts, and the stand-out is Sam Worthington. Worthington plays Marcus Wright who has awaken 15 years after being executed on death row to discover post Judgment Day Los Angeles. Marcus is trying to find someone in this new world, and ends up meeting up with the Reese and the resistance and is forced to make a tough choice along the way. Worthington is the only real tie to James Cameron, as he was recommended by Cameron after his starring role in Avatar. Other new additions to the series are Helena Bonham-Carter, Moon Bloodgood, and rapper Common (why rappers are starring in movies lately is beyond me). Neither Bloodgood, nor Common really feel like they belong. I had a hard time being convinced that these were battle torn warriors. Bale makes you feel like he’s Connor and he’s been fighting this battle for quite some time. Aside from his Austrailian accent popping up occasionally, Worthington excels and you can feel Yelchin growing stronger as the movie goes on. It’s a mixed bag with this new class of actors, but the guys that matter in the end (Bale, Worthington, Yelchin) can carry this series further and bring this saga full circle.
The directing style is very action oriented, as McG brings some intense and fun action sequences to this movie. No Terminator film is complete without a chase, and this film is no exception. Danny Elfman is another first timer to the Terminator franchise and he does some reinventing of his own by taking the famous theme by Brad Fiedel and modernizing it a bit and giving it a bit more intensity to the mood of the film.
Ultimately, Terminator Salvation brings a new life to this franchise that was probably almost dead with the third film. Some would argue that a Terminator film is incomplete without Schwarzenegger in a starring role (they used CGI to incorporate an 80’s Schwarzenegger cameo), but the only way this franchise can evolve is to leave behind it’s aging roots and continue to build new ideas around an epic background of the future war. I really liked Terminator Salvation. It doesn’t quite feel like the previous films, but in my eyes, that’s the leap into the future that this series needed to take. I certainly hope this one, will be back.