Westside Steve Posted June 9, 2009 Report Share Posted June 9, 2009 Terminator Salvation Warner Brothers PG 13 114 min OK I guess if I’m staying with the curve this issue we’ll need to rank TERMINATOR SALVATION with, uh, the other TERMINATOR flicks? I’m not sure if there’s an actual category “noisy plot free pieces of, well, you know” but maybe there should be. I guess you could toss PREDATOR, ALIEN and even PREDATOR vs. ALIEN in it. To be honest I haven’t been thrilled with any of the previous three TERMINATOR films. Though I didn’t blame Arnold Schwartzenegger, they just seemed like an excuse to use up whatever explosives and scrap metal they had laying around the set. Now Arnold is busy as the governor of California and the series tries to take on an aura of respectability with hot young Christian Bale as John Connor the legendary leader of the human resistance movement. If you recall the earth is under siege by evil machines programmed to wipe out the race. So we flash back to 2003 where an inexplicable cancerous Dr Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter) convinces death row inmate Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) to donate his body to science. He agrees and literally becomes a lean mean fighting machine; a cyborg with a mission. He’ll cross paths with Conner who is on some kind of time travel assignment to pinpoint and rescue his own father and thereby save the world. Or something. No matter what the plan, you can be assured that there is plenty of stuff getting blown up. Unfortunately it isn’t interesting enough to watch and to loud to sleep through. The machines (in the modern FX tradition of TRANSFORMERS) look pretty good and there’s even a prototype Arnold apparently made of latex. There’s also a little kid thrown in, a la MAD MAX for no apparent reason. I’d kind of hoped that this incarnation might have had more in the way of a plot but that isn’t the case in this man versus machine potboiler. C- WSS Westsidesteve@aol.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Gipper Posted June 11, 2009 Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 I liked it better than you did. Like you said, you must be grading on a curve if you give this a C- and Drag Me to Hell a C+. Speaking of Mad Max, don't you think it would be best for Mel Gibson's career to go back to Australia and do an updated Mad Max movie? I don't think he is too old to carry it off...given the right stunt men. And it is the one thing he could do that could not piss people off. Maybe he could make the Jews the heros of the post-apocalyptic world? What do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrownIndian Posted June 12, 2009 Report Share Posted June 12, 2009 Let me give you guys a clearer picture. Story: Man Vs Machines War is going on. Kyle Reese, the young guy who goes into the past in PART 1 is captured by Skynet and sent to a concentration camp. Reese's partner another human escapes and goes to John Connor. That new guy also turns out to be half man half machine with his heart still intact. John Connor frees him with the condition that he must go to skynet land and give connor the information regarding where Reese is being held. The dude does just that but sadly he learns that that was part of a plot by skynet to lure John Connor and kill him. The rest of the movie is about John connor and the half human save the day. Bad: The story totally sucks. It has its moments but when u go from watching a gripping part 1 to an exciting part 2 to a bearable part 3 you just want the series to end. This one fails to do that and the story line is also so loose that you kinda lose interest at times. Good: You can save money on your car insurance by switching to Geico ! oh wait ! Bottom line: It is a good to watch movie on a DVD. Come with no expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Westside Steve Posted June 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2009 I liked it better than you did. Like you said, you must be grading on a curve if you give this a C- and Drag Me to Hell a C+. Well yeah Gipper. I compare HELL to Freddy, Jason Mike Myers Chainsaw and the Exorcist. Everything you said about HELL is true but horror movies suck as a general rule. Chainsaw and Exorcist get A as do THE GODFATHER and CASABLANCA. Speaking of Mad Max, don't you think it would be best for Mel Gibson's career to go back to Australia and do an updated Mad Max movie? I don't think he is too old to carry it off...given the right stunt men. And it is the one thing he could do that could not piss people off. Maybe he could make the Jews the heros of the post-apocalyptic world? What do you think? I think one can say stupid shit when they're drunk. But yes I think King Max of the post apocalypse would work. WSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tobalaz Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 I've got to give T4 a big bold F here guys. There was not one part of that movie that reached out and grabbed me, drawing me in. As a matter of fact, I kept thinking "God, I wish I had my laptop here so I could play solitaire and surf the forums." This was nothing short of reviving a franchise that should be dead after a lousy #3 for a cash grab. I just goes to show, our DA isn't the only DA that can take something full of promise and crash faster than a 5 year old with the keys to his dad's Corvette. Speaking of sequels... Anyone else here Ghostbusters 3 stars filming this December? And... If you were a Ghostbusters fan, the new game is fantastic. All of the actors from the movies did their voices for the game, the crazy off the wall paranormal talk is there and it really makes you feel like you're in a Ghostbusters movie with a good deal of action to it. Come on, You get to blow up Stay Puff and watch the city get coated in marshmallow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan in Florida Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 I've got to give T4 a big bold F here guys. There was not one part of that movie that reached out and grabbed me, drawing me in. As a matter of fact, I kept thinking "God, I wish I had my laptop here so I could play solitaire and surf the forums." This was nothing short of reviving a franchise that should be dead after a lousy #3 for a cash grab. I just goes to show, our DA isn't the only DA that can take something full of promise and crash faster than a 5 year old with the keys to his dad's Corvette. Speaking of sequels... Anyone else here Ghostbusters 3 stars filming this December? And... If you were a Ghostbusters fan, the new game is fantastic. All of the actors from the movies did their voices for the game, the crazy off the wall paranormal talk is there and it really makes you feel like you're in a Ghostbusters movie with a good deal of action to it. Come on, You get to blow up Stay Puff and watch the city get coated in marshmallow! ************* SPOILER WARNING! ************* I give T4 a "D". My BIGGEST complaint is with the marketing of the movie. Before the movie was even opened, the TV previews showed the cyborg (1/2 machine / 1/2 man) discovering that he was a cyborg to HIS surprise. THAT would have been the ONLY surprise in the movie IF they wouldn't have BLOWN that fact BEFORE the movie opened. Than while watching the movie, and they get to the point where you can see he is a cyborg for the 1st time, they are like "TA DA!"....wow, they got me with THAT (the only) plot twist. Other than that, boring and a let down to me. I would have seen the movie without showing the only plot twist in advance. I could see them tipping the plot on week 2 of the release but maybe they KNEW the movie SUCKED and the word would spread faster than a Skynet virus. They could have improved the movie by having OUT-TAKES at the end of the movie (like Cannonball Run - Burt Reynolds used to do) but instead of comedy bloopers, they could have had Christian Bale going off on one of the crew. They could have even added a laugh track during that. My favorite (and really only one I liked) is T2 (with the liquid cop). Rarely do I like a sequal better than the original product. -------------------------------- As far as knowing that Ghostbuster 3 is coming out in December, no...I did not know that. I would like to see it IF the ORIGINAL cast is in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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