Terminator Salvation

*Contains small spoilers if you care about that kind of thing*

The critics were very harsh with this movie. My favorite came from Colin Cover of the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "The Terminator franchise was built on thrills, imagination, narrative, emotion, believability, character development and watchability. Terminator Salvation has plenty of thrills."

That's a pretty decent description. T4 is about 2 hours long, and about 90 minutes of it is action sequences. There is almost no time to develop an emotional attachment to the characters, or to engage with the plot. This is not in-and-of-itself a bad thing, but it is a sharp departure from what made the franchise successful. The previous three movies were about 40% action and 60% character/plot development. So naturally, fans were expecting a character driven narrative with a few cool action sequences. Since that is not what T4 delivers, many fans will walk out disappointed.

However, I am not one of those fans. For me at least, different is not always bad. Terminator Salvation was not what I expected, but I enjoyed the film. I enjoyed it not as I enjoyed the previous movies, but as an action movie with characters I already knew. Most of my reviews of other action movies could be summed up with "too much talking, not enough explosions." T4 expects you to know the characters already, and does not bother itself with explaining the backstory between Kate and John, or why the Resistance listens to John rather than its own command. Instead, it concerns itself with blowing shit up. For all the criticism this movie has received, no one can say that it didn't have enough explosions. Cool.

By biggest problem with this movie is not the lack of character, but with the title. Salvation from what? Salvation for who? It should be titled something like Terminator Battlefield or Terminator Warzone. Salvation should be the title of the very last terminator movie. This is definitely not the last one.

This movie does not really advance the story at all. There are no major revelations, there are no shocking plot twists. This movie is basically the opposite side of the coin to the Sarah Connor Chronicles. Chronicles is almost entirely character/plot, and Salvation is almost entirely action; and neither is really necessary to the Terminator storyline as a whole. T4 is the answer to the question: "what does the war between man and machine look like from John Connor's perspective?" If you are looking for answers to how John feels about that war, or how he beats the machines, look to the previous movies or the almost certain sequels.

The action scenes in this movie are well done and look good. And since this movie is almost entirely action scenes, I liked this movie. 4 out 5 stars.