Terminator Salvation: A Future Full of Cliches and Loud Things

The plot immediately reminds you of the Matrix. Terminator Salvation is the Matrix Revisited, but without the high-level thinking and existential philosophies and clear-cut concepts of virtual reality that contributed to the Matrix’s phenomenal success. In other words, it was confusing and disappointing. It’s old news. It’s a conundrum of recycled ideas, lame attempts at love scenes that remind you of a prelude to some random porn video that you saw back in the 80s and half-hearted campaigns to embed its real message in the minds of the audience (what is it again, exactly?).

Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoyed some parts of Terminator Salvation immensely. The chase scenes were effective in keeping people on the edge of their seats: imagine the horror or encountering a machine built for farming human bodies to further their mission of eradicating the entire human race. Imagine us as a people, ceasing to be the hunters of today and ultimately becoming the huntees of these robots. Imagine hiding in some forgotten corner of the world where the silence of extinction is deafening and a single, unfamiliar sound can make you jump out of your skin out of fear that your life is about to be claimed.

The Terminator Salvation was great at conveying these ideas of machine domination by communicating the horror experienced by the characters and transferring these feelings to the audience through the use of first person perspectives. For example, by demonstrating how the unfolding of a particular disaster would look through the eyes of a character in the scene.

A great example of this can be found in the beginning, when John Connor struggled to escape the enemy in a helicopter immediately after he found out that their mission has been compromised. He manages to get far away enough from the site, but his helicopter eventually gets hit by the enemy. The audience is taken on a ride as the vehicle spirals down, seen from the perspective of one of the passengers on Connor’s copter. You can see the disaster unfold second by second as the copter plummets through the air with Connor frantically finding a way to save the mission. The crash landing creates a cloud of dust and a deafening sound of metal being pulverized. And the moment that you see the body of the copter caving in under its weight and force, you can’t help but tense up and think, “OUCH”.

That, along with maybe three other similar scenes were all that held my attention and interest. The movie is 2 hours long. Other times it simply seemed to try too hard. The Arnold appearance could make any complex-minded individual (even just a wee bit complex?) want to hurl their shoe at the screen and yell obscenities. As though the plot wasn’t already clumsy and predictable enough at that point already.

And to top it all off, Machine Man, the semi-human weapon of the machines (who at first is similar to a high school bully who finds pleasure in shoving nerds against lockers) suddenly transforms into some sort of rehabilitated chum (the benevolent and calm look on his face is similar to that of a religious convert who was recently rescued from the perils of crack) whose robotic hand is clutching that of a delicate and innocent child (whose non-speaking role puzzles me). This is, of course, while they stand worried over the weak and dying body of their resistance leader, John Connor.

The great finale: Machine Man offers up his heart to save Connor’s life, simply because “everybody deserves a second chance.” We didn’t see that coming. Seriously. But then again, a character’s conflict in any story needs to be resolved and in this regard, Machine Man’s issues have come full circle. I guess I’ll have to at least hand it to the producers for not leading the audience around aimlessly on an incoherent ride around the fun world of Artificial Intelligence.

For those seeking short-lived, shit-for-brains thrills that they can forget about the moment they step out of the theater, Terminator Salvation is the perfect movie for you.