Terminator Salvation : Movie Review


Late in "Terminator Salvation," a character ponders aloud in voice-over, "What is it that makes us human? It's not something you can program. You can't put it into a chip." Apparently, you can't put it into a movie, either, at least not if you're McG.

"Terminator Salvation," directed by McG and written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris, mines the mythology of James Cameron's original 1984 "The Terminator" by indifferently hacking away at it with a virtual remote-controlled backhoe. This is the fourth picture in the "Terminator" franchise -- the previous one, the 2003 "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," was among the last pictures made by Arnold Schwarzenegger before he traded literal muscle for political clout -- and to work, it would have to be compelling enough to make people give a damn. But "Terminator Salvation" is so programmed, so impersonal, that it practically dares you to warm to its characters. Why should we care about iconic resistance leader John Connor (Christian Bale), or his teenage dad, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), if not even McG can be bothered to give a fig? Even the action sequences feel canned: Characters run toward helicopters, yelling, or grunt as they engage in jerky hand-to-hand combat. They may as well have been lifted from a lazily programmed computer game.

See www.salon.com for full review

Author : Stephanie Zacharek