What's Wrong with Terminator Salvation?

I went to see Terminator Salvation yesterday, and spent this day figuring out what's wrong with it. There are parts of it that I loved, but the film somehow lacks the drama and depth of its prequels. Here are my thoughts:



The film should be about John Connor. The only story of Terminator left to tell is the tale of how John Connor become the leader of human resistance, or the story of how he won (or lost) the war. Another possibility is doing the movie completely from other character’s perspective (possibly Kyle Reese’s), while John Connor figure is only heard through the radio as the voice of hope.

The only character that has a story is Marcus Wright, and Sam Worthington showed us that he may be one of the biggest stars of the future. He stole all the scenes, despite showing his Australian accent in one or two scenes.

Anton Yelchin did a great Kyle Reese. I am instantly reminded of Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese in the first Terminator film. His name will be the one to watch in the future, just like Worthington.

The action scenes, especially at the beginning, were all superbly crafted. I thought it was nothing short of spectacular. A perfect feast for a summer blockbuster movie. Money well spent, I say.

The whole look of the environment and the bleak world in the future was spot on. I personally thought that McG nailed this Terminator, visually at least.

While I adore Bryce Dallas Howard very much she didn’t have any meaningful scenes. I don’t even believe if John and Kate were really in love. Common, who played as Connor's right hand man also didn't have anything to do, and the romance between Marcus and Blair is somewhat undercooked and forced.

The relationship between John Connor and Marcus Wright should have been introduced earlier and given more depth, which would gave them both more time to establish their man-machine relationship, just like the previous Terminator series. Marcus giving up his life for John Connor didn’t really hit any emotion vortex of me.

They repeatedly saying John Connor were a prophet, and people keep listening to his orders and voice even though he’s not the leader of the resistance, but I couldn’t see why people believed in him. What kind of prophet-like things did he do? It sure ain’t there on the screen.

At the end of the story, this movie achieves nothing. John Connor is still not the leader of resistance, Kyle Reese is still the same kid we’ve seen in the first couple of minutes of the movie, and the war hasn’t even won or lost, which brings us to square one.

Overall, a disappointing addition to the Terminator franchise. While it will satisfy the need for a great action movie, it missed many great parts of the previous installments. I'm hoping that they won't be saying "I'll be back" too soon. At least not until they find a decent story to tell.