What do you do when you’ve taken a great concept, squeezed it until it’s bled dry, and made it a non-viable entity? In cinema, the answer is the “reboot”. And the best way to reboot a franchise is with a “prequel”. Following the path led by George Lucas and the Star Wars prequels, movie makers are revisiting some of the best sci-fi concepts that have been ruined by greed, and the American need to make each sequel to a movie (insert Schwarzenegger accent here) “Biggah, bettah, with even moh exploshons!” Star Wars worked to a point, with each prequel getting better and better. (Best in my opinion was The Clone Wars movie and animated series). Star Trek‘s new movie was mostly very good, with an interesting twist on the “reboot” concept, using an alternate timeline. Terminator Salvation, though, falls woefully short of these rebooted prequels.

I loved The Terminator when I first saw it as a kid. Great concept! Perfect use of Schwarzenegger’s acting and physique (much like Conan), and good acting throughout the film. Unfortunately, each sequel moved more towards flash over substance, Terminator 2 was fun to watch, but there were nagging moments where the concept and plot points were obviously thought of as secondary after the explosions and morphing CGI. Terminator 3 sucked and I was only able to watch about 15 minutes of The Sarah Connor Chronicles on TV before I turned the channel in disgust.

Terminator Salvation follows this trend, unfortunately. There are some really good action sequences, but there are some plot points (I won’t include any spoilers here) that just about killed me! Why would a machine that is programmed to terminate humans, with incredible strength, backhand and throw people, rather than crush their necks, or stab their hearts? Why do we feel a need to give a human face and emotions to a computer, sentient or not? Argh!

The acting in the movie is poor. I was disappointed by Christian Bale. (That lighting guy must have really gotten in his line of sight a lot, and maybe should have been yelled at even earlier in the production of the film?) I generally like Bale’s acting, even if it is generally angry and somewhat stiff, but this time he was out acted by Sam Worthington who stole many scenes from Bale. Helena Bonham Carter is oddly interjected into the movie several times. She’s a great actress, but you can’t act your way out of a bad story idea. Anton Yelchin plays Kyle Reese, and at 20 years old, I feel comfortable letting him know that his acting SUCKS! It sucked in Star Trek as well.

25 years after the release of The Terminator, the only things we have left, sadly, are a ruined concept and an awesome piece of music. Doo Dum Dum duh DUM!

 

Cinema this week appears every Friday at Noonish.

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