Marcus Wright, a death row inmate, is about to die when he is visited by a physician dying of cancer. She offers him a second chance of life if he donates his body to science. He was skeptical at first but decides to taste death and signs his life away.
Fast forward to Los Angeles in the year of 2018. The human race is very sparse and we are fighting a war against the machines. Enter John Connor who was part of the resistance when his team was killed while finding information on a new type of Terminator. He is suddenly a leader trying to stop the war from going any further. Marcus finally awoke from his coma to discover that everything he knew was gone. He runs into a young Kyle Reese & a young girl who were hiding from a Terminator. Then they intersect a radio broadcast from John Connor who is asking all in the resistance to continue the fight against the machines and to survive.
Terminator Salvation tells the story of John Connor (Christian Bale) who is trying to end the war against the machines and to save humanity. Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a death row inmate since 2003 who was given a second chance at life, struggles to find out his new purpose in life when he is reanimated in a post-apocolyptic future. And Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), a young adult trying to survive the world he lives in, has no clue that he is the key to everything. Terminator Salvation is a fresh new start to the Terminator saga. The franchise has fallen into the category of too much of a good idea.
At the end of this film, we can all agree that the saga should have ended with Terminator 2: Judgment Day (T2). When Cameron left T2 to greater success, we end up with the black sheep that is T3. Then, a few years ago, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, on Fox side-swiped T3 from existence and gave us a new insight on the Terminator series. Although Terminator Salvation followed up from T3, Salvation was true to the Terminator series that the previous film.
Moviegoers will enjoy seeing some brand new Terminators including the T-600 (a predecessor of the T-800 we know and love), the Mototerminators (the baddest motorcycles you never want to mess with), and the Hydrobot (Sea terminators which were modeled after eels). The action sequences are what make the Terminator saga the best action film in our time. The film packs a punch especially with the battle of John Connor and the original T-800 in the end. The battle scenes were the best of any Terminator films because we finally get to scene the apocalyptic world during the daytime instead of the night. Although Stan Winston, the legendary visual effects supervisor who worked on all four Terminator films, has passed on, it was a nice tribute to see his work on the big screen one more time. The movie a crosses the line between humanity and war. It asks, “do we lose our humanity when all hope is lost?”
Terminator Salvation is a good thrill ride of the future and the summer season, but please end the Terminator saga with some diginity when you make the fifth film.
Final Grade: B
Sadly, the plan is to make this a trilogy. That's one more film after the fifth [to which I say "Horrors!"].
Personally, I'm fine with them ending after this one. What a waste of $250 million [after adding in marketing]…