Terminator Salvation

I held out as long as I could, but on Wednesday I finally broke and went to see "Terminator Salvation." The 2009 film, directed by McG, is the fourth film in the "Terminator" series, but is the first one to take placed after Judgement Day - the day that the Skynet military computer program becomes self-aware and launches an attack to wipe-out humanity.

In terms of a timeline, "Salvation" takes place after Judgement Day and the first full assault of the machines, but before John Connor (played in this film by Christian Bale) has risen to total command of the human resistance. We are at a lull in the war - the machines are making smaller campaigns to collect and kill the smaller human settlements, while the humans are still working to organize themselves into a homogenous resistance. The civilized world has been generally obliterated by the machines, with only a few buildings left standing and nature generally taking back the territory.

Into this world wakes up Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who isn't quite sure what has happened and can only remember donating his body to science before being executed for a presumably horrendous crime. (The astute eye might catch that the paperwork he signs has Skynet Labs letterhead - foreshadowing!.) He runs into a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and a little girl in the remains of Los Angeles, and together they decide to track down John Connor. (On the way, though, Reese and the girl are captured by the machines and taken to Skynet headquarters in San Francisco.) Just as he is about to meet Connor, Wright steps on a mine which, instead of killing him...

...reveals that he is, in fact, a new model of Terminator with a human heart and brain! This comes just as much of a shock to Connor as it is to Wright, who does not understand what has happened to him. Connor and Wright agree on a plan in which Wright will infiltrate Skynet headquarters and disable the defenses so that Connor can come in and rescue Reese (who, we all know, needs to survive so that he can go back in time and father Connor).

Big twist here - this was all part of Skynet's plan! Wright had been programmed (without knowing it) to go out, earn Connor's trust, and bring him back. Wright, realizing his unwitting betrayal, rips out the chip that Skynet was using to manipulate him and decides to use his machine-level strength to protect Connor. Eventually they escape, but Connor's heart is damaged and, in a symbol-heavy resolution, Wright donates his heart to Connor to keep the hope of humanity alive.

(Oh, and there was a subplot about a weakly organized human resistance trying to destroy the machines with some sort of radio wave which would tell them to shut down. When the leaders of this resistance group do not listen to Connor and launch an attack, the machines destroy that arm of the resistance, and Connor comes to power.)

Was the movie a neat episode in a franchise which had been sent off-course with the third film (forever unnamed here)? Yes. Was it a great movie? No. The plot of the movie moved across long flat plains and would then make huge jumps. The characters were all these confused, introverted people which made it hard for the viewer to have any sort of relationship with them.

The movie suffered from not really adding anything to the prior movies. It seemed more like a fan-fiction story made into a movie. We didn't learn anything new about Connor or the war with the machines. It did not directly effect on developments made in the original two stories, but also did not bring anything new to the table. Rather, it simply seemed to exist in a world that had already been created.