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.jpg) One of the first things you learn in psychology class is the idea of ‘object permanence.’ It’s the idea that although an object cannot currently be seen, heard, or touched, it still continues to exist. It’s when a baby is playing with a toy and then you put that toy behind your back, the baby looks surprised because it believes you made the toy vanish and cease to exist. Babies learn that the toy hidden behind your back still continues to exist by the time they turn two years old, but for some reason, the makers of “Terminator Salvation” think this concept doesn’t go away.
The trailer for this film contains a curious scene. It’s a scene in which we learn something important about one of our characters. It’s a strange scene to base a trailer around, since the film treats the revelation about this character as a main plot point and the major focus of much of the film.
Wait a second. Let’s take a step back and not even talk about the trailer. This trailer shouldn’t be taken as a knock against the film. Even then, “Terminator Salvation” starts with Marcus Wright (played by Sam Worthington) in a curious scene on death row. He’s visited by Dr. Serena Kogan, as played by Helena Bonham Carter. Dr. Kogan gives Marcus a choice before he’s put to death. With a stroke of a pen, Marcus signs a document mere minutes before he’s executed. We are shown the document that Marcus has signed with the letterhead of Cyberdyne Systems.
Now, having seen all of the Terminator movies, I know what this more than likely means. It’s not a huge jump in logic to assume that Cyberdyne is going to do something bad to Marcus. Knowing what Cyberdyne’s major production is, it shouldn’t be a hard guess. But yet, the film acts as though we cannot jump to this conclusion. The film puts red herrings at every step of Marcus’s journey to find John Connor. It acts like that first scene never took place, trying to clue us into what might have happened to Marcus. Meanwhile, the film’s characters do not act in a way that would make us think Marcus has been, well, turned into a machine. Bad guys punch Marcus and act as though they are punching a human. Marcus reacts to pain. This nonsense continues until the trailer’s scene with Christian Bale’s John Connor.
The main thrust of the film is that Cyberdyne has failed to locate John Connor in the past, so the robot wars continue in 2018. John Connor leads a resistance team that intercepts a transmission from Skynet. The transmission lets the resistance know that Skynet’s number one target is and it’s a young boy named Kyle Reese. Since Reese is Connor’s dad, Cyberdyne thinks that the lack of Kyle means John will never be born.
Marcus Wright wakes up 15 years after his execution. He’s dazed, confused and lost. Marcus finds LA in ruins and the only survivors to be Kyle Reese (played by Anton Yelchin) and his silent friend, Star (played by Jadagrace Berry). After they save Marcus from the machines that haunt their every move, Marcus befriends the two young kids and they begin working their way towards larger groups of resistance fighters and John Connor.
The lack of mystery surrounding Marcus’ character makes the first two acts of the film to be somewhat lacking in the suspense department. A lot of the action sequences that hint at the truth about Marcus seem to fail only because a thinking audience knows the truth, but the film continues to act like the mystery wasn’t given away in the first reel. Director McG has a great eye for creating action sequences in this film, although he does so with minimal sets. It’s hard to imagine a world where robots have destroyed everything when all we see is desert. It takes until the last few set pieces in the film for the terrain to look different from scene to scene. McG does create a couple of flashy “look at what I can do with one camera shot” sequences, which draw attention to themselves and the filmmaking, rather than the story telling.
Although his story is spoiled early on, Sam Worthington plays his role with convection and style. He’s essentially the main character of the film, so the weight is on him to carry the film. Worthington is the best part of the film. Bale’s performance is more mixed. Bale has some strange line readings throughout the film and isn’t given much to do other than give inspirational speeches over loudspeakers. Bale goes for intenseness in a lot of his scenes, but it tends to come off as flat and unnecessary.
McG’s “Salvation” does have some of the better special effects of the newer ‘Terminator’ films. When available, McG used practical effects and it shows, making the puppets look more realistic than some of the CG effects. The CG version of the T-800 is especially bad and sticks out like a sore thumb. For the most part, the effects look pretty good.
This film is really ruined by the plotting. Was the first scene even necessary? Would it be more suspenseful if we knew nothing about Marcus going into the robot war? Who knows, but it’s a major misstep that leads “Terminator Salvation” to be a good looking, but empty action film.
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