Well, I'm not quite sure how to review this. The viewing experience wasn't what I wanted, but that had nothing to do with the movie, so I'm trying to filter that out of my mind. I thought the action, story, acting, music cinematography, and effects were all there. The editing really took me out of the movie, though. I'm not sure what was cut, but it was obvious between certain shots or scenes that something was missing. The movie really needed about 15 minutes more to go from a 7 to a 9 in my book. Okay, now that I've got my whining out of the way, I'll elaborate on the praise.
I thought the acting was solid. It was easy for Worthington and Yelchin to churn out their performances, as I thought those two characters had the best and most material. I hate that everyone seems so sour on John Conner and Bale's performance. My only beef was that there wasn't enough of Conner in the final cut.
Aside from editing, I was most impressed with the technical aspects of the movie. Between Star Trek and Terminator, I feel a little spoiled in that department. The stuff with Marcus' face, especially in Skynet, was great. The T-800 101 was pretty good. It was fun to see more than it was impressive. I would have preferred a little more of a cat-and-mouse hunt between the T-800 and Conner, but it worked. I really liked the weight that the 800 had as a CGI model. That added so much menace to the thing. The 600's as well. Very well done.
I guess the last big thing I want to discuss is the score. I really liked what Danny Elfman did with it. He made it his own, a very warlike composition, but kept enough connection to Brad Fiedel's work, especially from 1984, to make it a Terminator soundtrack. I guess the best compliment I can say is that it didn't actually sound like a Danny Elfman score.
Again, I'm giving this a 7/10. There was certainly room for improvement, but I suspect that the material cut from the movie is responsible for that. If we do get the R or unrated cut in four months, it will be interesting to compare the two and see how much better one is over the other.