Terminator: Salvation
Rating: 5/10 - 9/10 if you like things blowing up, fanboy (or girl) moments
Cast: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Michael Ironside, Bryce Dallas Howard
Director: McG
It's 2018 - the world's been annihilated as Skynet continues its purge against the human race.
In this post apocalyptic world, John Connor (Christian Bale) is continuing to lead the resistance - which is growing ever more desperate and despondent as the battles continue to rage.
But Skynet decides the way to decisively win the war against Connor is to target his father Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin).
So Connor races against time to save his father and the future.
At the same time, Kyle Reese's befriended by a death row inmate (Sam Worthington) from 2003 who finds himself mysteriously in the future and desperate to find some answers to who and what he is.
Terminator: Salvation is an odd beast - as a Terminator film, it doesn't really work - as a blockbuster film, it's okay with plenty of things exploding in widescreen and plenty of action sequences.
There's much to admire in this film - some of the action sequences are superb; but for every moment that has you admiring what they've done, there's an equal myriad of celluloid scenes which scupper your enthusiasm.
McG's created a brilliant vision of the world post nuclear holocaust - he's bleached the desert scenes so that it's a desolate white - but while you're admiring that, he shows us an industrial world which is riddled with stereotypes and with random fireballs shooting into the sky.
As for the cast, they're all pretty impressive - Anton Yelchin is good as Reese (although he's a little underused); Bale is all gravelly voiced resistance fighter and world weary as the so called saviour of the world.
However, the film belongs to Sam Worthington's character, Marcus Wright.
Worthington spends most of the film looking for answers - even though the audience's already guessed what he is - but it's this turn which should, if there's any justice, see him given a much higher profile.
McG's made a film which will have the real Terminator fans impressed with some of his vision (and some nice cameos for fans of the genre) but many will feel overall it's a little lacking.
Granted, there could have been a bit more done to tweak the plot (and improve some of the frankly atrocious dialogue) but he's created a very real vision of what the world could be - and his high octane action sequences are visually stunning and enthralling.
Just a shame it doesn't hold up to the cancelled far too early Sarah Connor Chronicles - which managed a lot more with character and on a TV budget.
WIN STACKS OF TERMINATOR SALVATION GOODIES
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