Terminator Salvation
From FilmFile
Taglines:
- The End Begins
- We Fight Back
Contents |
Synopsis
After Skynet has destroyed much of humanity in a nuclear holocaust, a group of survivors led by John Connor struggles to keep the machines from finishing the job.
Review
Whilst nowhere near as bad as anticipated (after all, it could have been as terrible as Charlie's Angels and Full Throttle were given that McG was directing), Terminator Salvation still a bit pants overall. Minor quibbles such as continuity editor taking a few days off in post production (things like Connor jumping straight into a helicopter seat and immediately using the cotrols to take off, yet somehow a seatbelt managed to automatically strap him in so when it crashed he was hanging upside-down in the seat.....minor, I know, but lazy editing) didn't really bother me too much. Bale's voice did - what was he thinking? You can understand his use of that voice in Batman when he is delibverately disguising his vocals so that no-one twigs that he sounds just like Wayne, but here? What was that all about?
Story wise, generic action fest, and a shame that the trailers gave away one of the biggest plot-points, as it just meant that for half the film you were just waiting to get to that point, and then the rest was predictable. Plot-holes and unanswered questions feel more like lazy writing than an attempt to build a mythology to answer in later films - but I am willing to be proven wrong when the inevitable sequels arrive. The shoe-horning of references to the earlier films (lines of dialogue etc) is too forced, and by the time the film has a snippet of Guns N Roses "You Could Be Mine" blaring out, you find yourselve groaning at the self-referential nature of the film.
Overall it was an average experience, a pure 5/10. Nothing to write home about, but not a total waste of time. Showed that McG is not as bad as he used to be.
Trivia
- After Claire Danes declined to reprise her role as Kate Brewster, Charlotte Gainsbourg was once attached to star before pulling out due to a scheduling conflict with another film. She has been replaced by Bryce Dallas Howard.
- Helena Bonham Carter replaced Tilda Swinton shortly before filming was set to begin. She filmed her role in 10 days.
- Director McG asked the cast and crew to read the novel "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick - the basis for Blade Runner (1982) - because he wanted them to absorb the bleakness of the world in the novels.
- This is the first Terminator movie not to feature Earl Boen, who played a doubting psychiatrist in the other films.
- The first Terminator film to receive a PG-13 rating (the previous films were R).
- This is the first film in which John Connor and his father Kyle Reese have appeared together (if one disregards the Special Edition of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), where Kyle Reese makes an appearance in a dream sequence that was deleted from the Theatrical Version).
- All four 'Terminator' films have had their climactic battle scenes take place in industrial settings. The Terminator (1984) saw Kyle and Sarah face a skinless T-101 in an automated factory; Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) had the T-101 and the T-1000 face off in a steel mill; Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) placed John, Kate and the T-850 at Cyber Research Systems, where John and Kate escaped the TX in a particle accelerator; and 'Salvation' sees John and Marcus face off with the very first T-800 in a Skynet factory.
- The T-101 arrived in 1984 at the Griffith Park Observatory. This is the same place Marcus and Kyle went to get a car in this movie.
- In one scene, we see Marcus snatching the shotgun from Kyle. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the T101 grab a shotgun from a bar owner in the same manner.
- In the intro, the camera focuses on each letter of the film's title before the words "Terminator" and "Salvation" intersect with each other before being placed in their appropriate places, is similar to the intro from The Terminator (1984).
- Dedicated to the memory of Stan Winston.
- The first Terminator movie not to feature time travel.
Cameos and allusions to other films
- The song "You Could Be Mine" by Guns N' Roses appears in the film. The song was previously used in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and appeared on the film's soundtrack.
- The third Terminator film to have the line, "Come with me if you want to live." In The Terminator (1984), Kyle Reese says it to Sarah Connor at the Tech-Noir club. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), the Terminator says it to Sarah Connor when they first meet at the mental institution. In 'Salvation' Kyle Reese says it to Marcus Wright when they first meet. In Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), a paraphrased version of this line ("Do you wanna live? Come on!") is spoken by John Connor to Kate Brewster when he and the T-850 rescue her in the graveyard. "Come with me if you want to live" is also spoken by Cameron in the pilot episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (2008), when rescuing the teenage John Connor from the 'Cromartie' T-888.
- Old recordings of Sarah Connor are played in the film, with lines nearly word-for-word from The Terminator (1984). Linda Hamilton voiced the lines herself in an uncredited role.
- In the original The Terminator (1984) Kyle Reese asks the police "What day is it? What year?" And the first thing Marcus Wright says to Kyle Reese is "What day is it? What year?".
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