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I know that the goal of Terminator Salvation was to distance itself from Terminator 3. That alone is part of the reason why I'm not a good candidate for judging this movie, because I actually liked Rise of the Machines. Personally, I'll take a few cheesy Arnold scenes over a movie that is more about how it looks than it is about truly developing the characters, history, morality, or themes that were developed in the first three films.

In Terminator Salvation, our protagonist isn't John Connor or Sarah Connor. It's a man named Marcus; and that's the first problem I have with this movie. While Marcus really is the most interesting character, and Sam Worthington plays him wonderfully, it was really disturbing to me that John Connor became a backup character, as did Kate Connor (by the way, why hire a name actor like Bryce Dallas Howard to be in this movie if she just looks worried and pregnant for a couple short scenes?). The series has always had a Connor as a protagonist, and when that changes, the mood of the movie changes. Christian Bale is almost completely wasted here, and even then, his performance was disappointing because he is either yelling or giving his Batman hoarse whisper in all of his scenes.

I heard that for the longest time, Bale kept refusing to be a part of this new breed of Terminator movies, and I think there's a reason why. In the hands of director McG (the name alone is a warning sign) and the script writers, Terminator Salvation falls prey to some weak storytelling. For example, this is the future, when Kyle Reese is a young man who hasn't yet gone to the past of the 1980s and become John Connor's father. So, why are the machines searching for Kyle Reese? Why is he even a blip on their radar? Has John Connor been putting out some sort of radio transmission every night telling everyone about his father, and the machines have been listening in? There are also some tired conventions in use, which can be seen most obviously in the form of a cute little girl who doesn't speak. She serves absolutely no purpose in the plot, except perhaps to show an innocent child in the midst of all of the violence, and I think she may hand a detonator to another character at one point. Child sidekicks are a NO my book unless they're written intelligently. And man, the big plant where all the terminators are made and all of the humans are held prisoner only had one security guard for Christian Bale to sneak past! And I'm all for throwbacks to the old movies, but there was one line that actually made me say, "WAH-wah!" out loud. I could go on about the heart themes, but I'll leave it for now.

Like I mentioned earlier, I did like Sam Worthington as Marcus, and actually, Anton Yelchin is great as Kyle Reese as well. Perhaps it's because the movie actually stopped to have some down time with the two before its gears set into motion and refused to stop. I almost think a movie about Reese, leading up to the point where he meets John Connor, would have been more interesting. Another good aspect of the movie was, of course, the action. While some of the shots gave me the impression that McG is a bit pretentious, I did admire a lot of the fast-paced scenes. Some of it was a little too close to Transformers (even the sounds some of the larger machines make seemed too similar) and Batman (hello, motorbikes), but special effects crew were able to come up with some interesting mechanical ideas. The sound was awesome, and the editing was relatively smooth as well. I would say the movie is worth seeing for some of these reasons alone, despite its flaws.

There is definitely something to be said for a more organic approach to movie making. I liked that McG and his crew tried to use more props and explosives rather than CGI. That's what made the original movies feel more threatening, and that's what gives us some great, gritty scenes that make the reality of John Connor's future feel more realistic. I just wish that this humbler and smarter approach might have been applied to the scriptwriting as well.

This movie had potential, and it felt like it could have benefited from a few more pairs of eyes on the script. I would so be willing to go over Hollywood scripts for a nominal fee and give my input! Fifty bucks, even! That would be such an awesome job. But for now, like I feared, this Terminator movie was what I expected it to be given the current trends in summer action blockbusters. I watch all of the first three movies any time they're on TV, but I doubt this one will hold up very well with repeat viewings (if I decide to watch it more than a couple times). I was entertained, but disappointed.