By Christopher Stipp

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So, I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

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A lot of talk this week about Quentin Tarantino’s newest film screening at Cannes. Consensus? It’s talky, light on action and seems like a WWII DEATH PROOF.

TERMINATOR SALVATION – REVIEW

There absolutely shouldn’t have been any blessing given from James Cameron with regard to TERMINATOR SALVATION. The only religious intonations given over this movie should have been its last rites.

Now, I can’t stop you from seeing this movie. You will see it irrespective of anything I have to say on this. I realize this.

You’ve been sold on it, I was sold on it, director McG’s P.T. Barnum huckster antics during preview showcases to fanboys teased and titillated audiences everywhere (“I really fought hard for those mammaries to be in there, fellas!”) but there is no escaping the fact that behind the tell-tale daa-daa-daa-daa-daa drum beat we all know as the sonic opening calling card for this franchise is nothing but a lot of smoke and a weak film. A film, mind you, which McG himself said should speak for itself. If it did it would say: Don’t spend $10 on me. Wait for Netflix.

There are a few things that make this a truly remarkable misstep in a franchise that should have ended 2 films ago but one of them comes early on as we meet John Connor (Christian Bale) who absolutely owns the first few minutes of the film in the way he carries his heavy burden as the leader for the resistance and the Batman-like voice with which he wants reality to conform to his own. He’s badass, he chews nails for fun and he’s not going to let crashing in a helicopter, which is a great special effects moment in this film, stop him from thrashing a terminator that deserves leaded violence.

The problems begin with the moments following when Bale is flying over an ocean, wanting to get back to resistance headquarters. He’s been beat up, almost killed and is denied entry to the underwater base of operations. But that’s not going to stop him from getting in! Much like another summer movie hero from over two decades ago, Jack Ryan in HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, he’s going to get on that damn sub. The fundamental issue which is wholly representative of what ails this movie is that in OCTOBER there was some emotional weight, genuine drama as he unhooked himself from that line to get in that submarine; there was tension, mood, atmosphere, a real sense of danger. Bale’s bullheaded bravado, masked by the tired trope of cinematic bullheaded machismo as he flippantly tosses himself out of the low flying aircraft into the ocean, is nothing more than a cheap way to try and make this guy seem like a real tough guy.

When next we see Bale, he’s sitting in a chair looking all kinds of torqued, moody, getting chewed out by Michael Ironside, playing a character I am not unsure of whether is any different than we saw from any number of 80’s movies where his role is to try and be an even tougher character than those he’s acting opposite of, all the while it begs the question of how much suspension of disbelief is going to be required of me in this film?

It’s a trick question, of course, as the film has moments like this peppered throughout the entire film. For example, the people who have been living without real homes since Judgment Day. They’re fantastically dirty and dusty but the glare coming off their teeth as their lips and faces are sullied with the detritus of a cataclysmic event reminds you that at least they have their Colgate. Another: When Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington, and you’ve got to appreciate the grade school irony in a script that names a man Wright) meets up with young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) in one of the best sequences of the film as we have our first look at a terminator who is at once zombie-looking and completely sinister. Hours later, after escaping death, Marcus fiddles with a radio. He just happens to fix it at just the time when, speak of the devil, Connor is broadcasting his fireside chat with those out in the field regarding their next moves. Never mind the timing, the way they catch the signal at just the right frequency or the acknowledgment that it’s Connor speaking to them. It’s just all very convenient.

Later, Reese is part of an escape from a very bad situation from a slew of terminating machines. He and Marcus are departing the explosive moment in a tow truck when moments later he has to pull a single lever at just the right time to make the scene work; forget logic, it begs us, as not only does Reese pull the right one at the right time from a literal array of choices it does nothing to help the dramatic thrust of the film. There is no danger here, no threat of imminent danger, because these guys have an exponential amount of luck on their side and this is the problem with the film.

Further, in the film’s first hour, we find out early that the resistance has found a way to stop the machines, a poorly explained software program that is embedded on a jump drive that needs a clunky boombox to use. About this time, Connor sends his team to fetch an aqua terminator, a lot like the squids from the MATRIX sequels, to which they find one, bring it aboard, all the while being able to keep it from informing other aqua terminators that its been captured or of its current location. This sonic disruptor is one of the weakest McGuffins as it leads exactly nowhere. It’s a ruse, a poorly devised plot device whose sole purpose is used to an awful and regrettable convenience when finally employed to its strongest effect. The film is riddled with lapses in logic, and honestly if an action movie were on point doing what it has to, we shouldn’t care but from rain that just seems to stop on cue to a fiery explosion that singes nary a hair on the person who is caught in a fireball there is more than enough to puzzle at.

Moon Bloodgood, for all that McG has made about her, is actually one of the more redeemable things about this film. Along with Sam Worthington and Anton Yelchin as the reluctant hero you have the three best reasons to see the film. I would even posit that their story, by itself, could have been a more entertaining diversion than what we build up to here. Marcus’ second lease on life is slightly introspective and rather interesting. Kyle’s progression from hesitant killer to lethal hero is wonderfully laid out. But that’s the most frustrating thing about this film. It has fits and starts of potential and has excellent action set pieces only to dumb itself down to appease the lowest common denominator as moments just happen to break positively for those we are supposed to care the most about in the movie. When the “big reveal” in the 3^rd act happens near the end try and convince me otherwise that it doesn’t make you feel cheated. The shadows, the calculated angles, the careful placement of bodies, it feels more like a math assignment than it does a celebration of all that’s great in excellent action movies. The effects at this point felt on par with THE CROW. The penultimate battle between man and machine, in the bowls of Skynet headquarters, however, tries to win you back with a glorious display of physicality and menace but by then it’s too late. The film cannot elevate itself above a 2^nd tier auctioneer when compared to more thought out films in its genre; leave it to Nolan to raise the bar for everyone else who comes behind him. I commend McG for not bowing to the pressure of actually integrating more of the terminators in the film, Lord knows that would’ve made it far more intriguing and add to the summer spectacle this should have been, but he demurs to telling a bullet ridden story with nowhere to end but with a whimper.

For all his ruminations about how Bale said he flatly turned down this role until he was given a script that you would have thought came with gilded light pouring down from every page if it got Bruce Wayne to say “Yes” to it after turning it down what you have is a story that is full of logical missteps, plots that go nowhere, effect work that at times has you wondering whether it was worth the cameo and the questionable taste for an actor that proved with DARK KNIGHT you could have a great summer film that was designed, and whose sole purpose was, to make money for its cash master while being reasonably intelligent. TERMINATOR SALVATION is a wonder as it doesn’t want to be intelligent, it doesn’t even want to be smart, it just wants to be a throwback to the films you could enjoy on basic cable and be done with once you’ve seen it. It’s an embarrassment of spectacle that leaves a lot of money on the table.

From a pure franchise standpoint, a solely economic exercise, McG may win the weekend but he will lose the summer war.

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