By Robert Humanick
Let’s cut to the chase: is McG to blame for the semi-smoldering wreck that is Terminator Salvation? For whatever it’s worth, not in the eyes of this died-in-the-wool fan of the series—not enough, that is, to warrant making him a scapegoat for the entire mess. Surely this is, at the very least, a problematic film. I’ve half a mind to call it an outright bad one, and I’ll admit bias enough that it might simply be beyond my critical lexicon to put the words “bad” and “Terminator” next to one another in the same sentence. (You see, Cameron’s original is half the reason, if not more, that I am the way I am now, and yes, count me as a fan of Jonathan Mostow’s Rise of the Machines.) Don’t think I’m blind, though—there are parts of Salvation that "bad" would be too good a descriptor for, and some of the sins committed here are unforgivable. But like a rodeo performer up against an angry bull, I find myself tipping my hat to McG for his sheer willingness to take on this wild beast of a movie. He gives it his all, though I can’t imagine anyone’s "all" being nearly enough to repair the damaged goods that went into this production.
Fittingly, one of the most telling aspects of Terminator: Salvation's numerous problems are the Terminators themselves. Among the most chilling villains of the medium, the T-800 and T-1000 always struck me as most frightening in their cold calculation and absolute reliance on logic. Locate. Acquire. Kill. No pity, no remorse, no fear. By comparison, Salvation's machines simply fuck around, and such simple inanities continually eat away at the film's foundation. In an early skirmish with a half-destroyed endoskeleton (echoes of the original’s climax), John Connor gets tossed about like a rag doll when he should by all rights be the recipient of an easy killing stroke. This happens ad nausea over the next two hours, and I say, bullshit.
The whole of Salvation lacks a clear purpose or drive. Only a few scenes pass before it becomes clear this script was the work of a Hollywood team (a dash of Haggis, a pinch of Nolan, etc.) in which seemingly every party vied for his own stake in the matter—essentially a collective “fuck you” to the creative singularity the series has long been known for. The result is a lot of narrative bumbling and halfhearted melodrama that stands far and away from the naturalistic urgency Cameron infused into his chase-writ-large storylines, and while Salvation's original conclusion—in which John Connor dies (the script was reworked when supposed fans went berserk after a draft leaked online)—would have doubtfully improved the material much, it still would have been an instance of bold creativity.
Excessive characters abound (including that most embarrassing of devices, the Mute Child), many of them existing but for plodding expositional purposes (and marquee padding, I suspect). Not one bears much in the way of identifying personal traits—the wordless performance by Michael Edwards as the elder John Connor in the future war opening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day has more meat on the bones than the sum of Christian Bale’s superficial brooding (his failure might be the biggest disappointment; where’s the mad eccentricity we saw in American Psycho and Rescue Dawn?). Only new character Marcus Wright, a resurrected convict now fused with a Terminator chassis (to which he is unaware), bears any kind of dramatic or thematic weight, to which we can thank the excellent Sam Worthington. He gives the part infinitely more soul than was ever genuinely conceived at the writing stage. It’s no help, though, that the film neuters its own attempt at a gut-punching reveal as per his existential crisis by essentially giving it away outright (see below).
Salvation starts off so badly—essentially, the film shoots itself in both feet—that it’s almost easy to think fondly of the rest by the end. An opening credits sequence seemingly meant in homage to the original’s horizontal text crawl instead dookies all over it with an idiotic scramble effect complete with colons, ampersands, and commas, as if to remind us that, you know, computers are important to what’s about to unfold. Following is the entirely ill opening scene in which Marcus Wright—on death row, and at this point still entirely human—donates his soon-to-be-perished body for research at Cyberdyne, the company responsible for creating the soon-to-be-malevolent supercomputer SkyNET. McG may not have had a direct hand in this screenwriting atrocity, but damn it, the man should have known better than to deem it acceptable in the first place.
From here, it’s almost completely uphill, albeit not without the occasional pitfalls. In the single worst scene in the series, John Connor listens to the tape we heard Sarah Connor record at the end of the first film (a key passage if there ever was one), only now the dialogue has been expanded upon so as to spell out in plain terms the series’ central time travel paradox. Surely, my affection for the original film contributed to the wretched sensation I had at this moment, but it’s always been a pet peeve of mine (actually, I prefer the George Carlin designation of "Major Psychotic Fucking Hatred") when films condescend to their material. Here, I can’t quite tell if the filmmakers meant to catch up younger audiences on the previous films (because 25 years is, like, so long ago) or if they themselves are poorly versed (if at all) in Terminator mythology. Prime example: John Connor must have forgotten the entirety of the previous two films, so slow are his realizations about time travel implications. Either that or the post-apocalyptic food supplies are so low that everyone’s brains have atrophied a bit, but given how Moon Bloodgood’s Blair Williams looks like she’s just had a perm throughout, I somehow doubt that intention.
If there’s a singular saving grace to the material, it’s McG’s full-hearted (if decidedly misguided) belief in it. At its best, Terminator Salvation could have almost convinced me that something important was on the line; McG’s approach is almost religious in tone, and had someone had the state of mind (or a big enough pair) to reject this stillborn pile of organs posing as a script, it might’ve been able to hold a candle to Cameron’s unwavering assurance or Mostow’s cheeky subversions. But like the film’s other, relative successes, it’s never enough. What should have been the unquestionable star of the film—the Road Warrior-esque landscape—proves nearly a bore given how little the script lets us soak in the post-apocalyptic hellfire. Not a moment of Salvation compares to the first three films' future war sequences (let alone any of the PC games produced by Bethesda Softworks in the mid '90s). Instead, it amounts to something of a hollowed-out retread, complete with familiar soundtrack choices, popular one-liners, and—in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of special effects mastery—a cameo by Arnold himself, perfectly recreated in his 1984 likeness. Too bad it wasn’t in service of something worthwhile. No small tragedy, this is the first Terminator film without a heart.
House contributor Robert Humanick's writings appear in Slant Magazine and on his blog The Projection Booth.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Terminator: Salvation
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12 comments:
It's a shame, but I guess we should have seen this coming, right? The continuity had already been pushed so far beyond any sort of consistency that their only choice was really to build this Terminator from the spare parts of the last ones. At least the catchphrases had a tiny bit of resonance, although I'm sure that's hardly the fault of this film.
You are being much, much too kind. I'm a huge Terminator fan (Im a fan of T3 as well) and the entire film was really, really bad. Story was ludicrous, robots were clumsy and stupid when close to killing their prey, Christian Bale growled his way thru the film, making it unclear why anybody would ever follow him, the entire film was gray, inhuman, and without any true reason for being. A huge disappointment, a terrible film.
Ouch, but I agree with Anonymous: still too kind. If, in the crassest possible terms, Star Trek restored the golden luster to Paramount's most valuable single asset, then T:S wasted 25 (!) years of good will created by Cameron, Schwarzenegger and Hamilton in form-, genre- and archetype-refining pieces of work. Really, really disappointing.
Also, bludgeoningly loud.
I’m not sure if you skipped this because you didn’t want to delve too deep into spoiler territory (SPOILER ALERT: I’m about to), but the moment where Blair abruptly decides to free Marcus and help him escape was possibly the worst single character motivation I’ve ever seen on film. My wife is someone who eschews virtually any level of critical cinematic, analysis beyond “ I liked it” (or not), and even she turned to me in the theater and remarked that made no sense whatsoever for that character to do that. I wanted to like this movie, it sure was pretty, and the action scenes were pretty top-notch, but yeah, just an abominable script. I can’t say I’m sorry I saw it, or that I wasn’t entertained by it at some level, but the overwhelming feeling this movie left me with was disappointment.
Funny that no one is picking up on this other than Devin Faraci at Chud.com, but Term:Salvation is another example this Summer of a strike script, a film that was rushed into production without the proper pre-production polish.
I'm not saying the movie would have been much better if the script had been properly doctored, but this Summer abounds with lousy scripts and half-baked plotting.
Even Star Trek has a really lousy script behind it. Is anyone seriously expecting Transforminators 2 and GI Joe to be any better?
Now here's the Rob I know and love. Bordering stream-of-conscious autobiography thrown in with critical but simultaneously gentle analysis. Why can't I be mean as nicely as you?
In short, bravo my friend.
The result is a lot of narrative bumbling and halfhearted melodrama that stands far and away from the naturalistic urgency Cameron infused into his chase-writ-large storylines, and while Salvation's original conclusion—in which John Connor dies (the script was reworked when supposed fans went berserk after a draft leaked online)—would have doubtfully improved the material much, it still would have been an instance of bold creativity.
My understanding is that the script was in fact rewritten to make Connor a central onscreen character along with the other fellow, rather than an offscreen presence, at Bale's behest. And the details of the first draft are slightly different from your mention, as I recall - something about a robot assuming Connor's identity? One of those 'neat twists' that can undermine everything iconic and streamlined about an earlier show (cf. Lost).
Sorry for being a nerd, but you meant Interplay, not Bethesda, right?
Big fan of the first two movies,can anyone please explain to me how McG managed to get away with making this with so many evident plot holes, can someone please explain to me the following.
How does sky-net know Reese is John Connors father if Reese going back in time is yet to happen. If its is because it knows this from what happened in the past then it also knows that sending the t800 back to kill SC will not work . Essentially if Sky-net doesn’t send back the original t800 (Arnie) then Reese will never be sent back and JC will hence never exist .Reese arriving at Sarah Connors door and saying “I’m from the future honestly with terminators and stuff… we need to father a child to save humanity…lets have sex” just wouldn’t work. Therefore Sky-net can’t know who Reese is and shouldn’t be trying to kill him
Following on from this why does a 2018 sky-net want to kill john Connor anymore then any other resistance fighter? He is not yet its leader, again if its because of what happened in the past (which I doubt as most records were supposed to have been lost) then again it should know that that this “trap” it sets in order to kill him in salvation wont work as the battle with the humans is still ongoing when it is developing the T1000 further ahead in the future.
Why does JC think the signal interruptor will work when he knows from his own past that the t1000’s are yet to be created which means the war wont be over for some time.
Why does JC not tell reese or the t800 from the 2nd movie “listen will you get mom to include something on the tapes about the terminator with organs as he actually turns out to be on our side and itll save a whole lot of stress ammo etc if I just expect and accept him.
Finally why does Sky-net from lets say 2025 not send a t1000 to 2018 as it knows exactly where john connor will be on several occasions (battling the cg Arnie for example) to just wait there for the right moment and pop several thousand bullets in him.
Mark M you're spot on with the paradox stuff-ups. I still don't understand why SkyNET wanted all those people after it had developed the Marcus Wright cyborg, what's the point? The cyborg was supposed to end the war.
I originally watched this movie from a crap cam copy off the internet :o and couldn't tell the difference between the John Conner character and the Marcus Wright charter and thought the Marcus Wright character was a dopelganger of John Conner. This led to some wild plot forcasts that were ultimately more exciting than the real story. Shame, I liked my plot better.
I actually don't agree. I thought the only thing really lacking from the film was a distinctive flair with the material on the director's part - the guy has no particular panache, and as is typical when most jobbing directors get their hands on decent material, they don't allow the viewer to experience the film in the proper way - the film never breathes.
Danny Elfman has to be held somewhat responsible for a score that neither resonates with the films themes nor ties it to its predecessors. The music goes a long way to helping the viewer identify the film.
As for the time paradox - it's innately confusing. Of course Skynet knows now that Kyle Reese fathered John Connor - Kyle Reese was arrested in the first film and all of Sarah Connors testimonies were recorded. The question is after Judgement Day, did any records exist? Reese himself was born after Judgement Day so Skynet cannot go back and change that due to no record of his birth, and the Skynet that sent the original T-800 back to kill Sarah Connor need not necessarily have known of Kyle Reese's existence. As Sarah Connor say, the future is not set. All of these events change the course of future. Even after all the events of the first three films, Judgement Day came to pass though not necessarily as it would have previously.
Bale was good, although his quest at times seemed somewhat self-serving - save Kyle Reese so he himself lives - and Worthington had all the demeanor you would expect of a killer, with plenty of heart. The motivation for Blair Williams in freeing him was perfectly understandable - he saved her. And Yeltsin excelled.
Very decent film, just not near being a classic.
Robert is too kind, the film is vile in so many ways. The Mad Maxie bit (distasteful hippies in the convenience store from T3) started the bile rising.
... and mute girl, and funny resistance boy
... and obvious prototype terminator (bit of X-Men or maybe Jason X there).
... and overload of cheap facial close-ups to cover the lack of real plot or pacing.
Compelled to walk out seeing it wasn't getting any better not long after the left-over bits from Transformers (giant robot and Harley-based bikes, you know). Total waste of Michael Ironside (hey, SF/B movie icon +, didn't look like he was having fun at all), as well as all of the others.
Enjoyed T3 and am enough of a fan to probably suffer TS all the way through when or if it is on TV (maybe even borrow the video in a moment of total boredom), but god, what garbage.
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