Ok so I saw the other night and I have quite a lot to say cause this is my favorite sci-fi franchise. For those who don’t want to read my lengthy break down or want to avoid SPOILERS in a nutshell
it was pretty disappointing and I enjoyed T3 much better. However all things considered it could’ve been worse but it also could’ve been so much better.
If you enjoyed let’s say Bayformers for instance which means you are far more forgiving of extremely shallow blockbusters than I am then well this might just work for you. Maybe if all you want is action and decent SFX (I say decent cause they really weren’t that great the little batteries not included disc that chased Marcus and Kyle and the “Arnold” skinned T-800 especially looked like super imposed photoshop add ons there was no real fluidity) then you just might be ok with this.
But if you loved the original trilogy and care for a blockbuster with a little logic and heart like what you find in those movies (yes even T3) then well don’t say I didn’t warn you if you decide to check for this. I give it a 2/5 only out of generosity and my undeniable love for the franchise and the fact that I enjoyed it much more than Bayformers and Pirates 2 so it's not the worst movie experience I had this decade, but truthfully it is 1/5 material lol @ my boy using the infamous “I wish I had 4 hands…” quote when the credits rolled everybody laughed at that ****
Star Trek is still the sci-fi action blockbuster to beat this summer hands down. If you want a movie that delivers then go watch that and this is coming from someone who hates everything JJ Abrams made aside from that movie, it was that good. At least that movie had some genuine heart instead of trying to force authenticity by blatantly referencing previous Trek films and incorporating a story that didn’t make any damn sense.
OK for the rest of you, I now present to you my rather lengthy tirade lol
The Good:
The action sequences were on point. I’ve seen people on other sites say they have no weight to them because they just feel like a series of random events due to the poor story structure and character development but I enjoyed a lot of them.
Nothing particularly groundbreaking and most of it is very derivative of better action movies and had nothing touching the action scenes of T2 or even that awesome crane truck chase scene from T3. However there were some cool set ups and it was nice to actually be able to follow everything on screen with no struggle in this age of extreme shaky cam action.
By all means this is the type of action scene structure I expected from Bayformers even if some action scenes were riddled with continuity errors (motorcycles are shooting the crane truck and yet the truck is not damaged). I heard the second unit director handled the majority of the action sequences so I give the props to him/her and not to McG for the most part.
Kyle Reese – While actually pretty pointless in execution and necessity Screech Yelchin as some poster so eloquently put it on here lol channeled Michael Biehn better than I expected him to. I would like to see the role recast if there ever is a sequel (which I seriously now doubt) even if I don't see that movie in theatres which I won't but nevertheless he seems to be the only one who played the role with proper respect to the previous actor.
The Bad:
The story – This movie completely lost me about 30 minutes in when it was established SKYNET wanted to hunt Reese. We know who he really was and that they'll capture him but never kill him because the trilogy would be irrelevant if there is any twist. Really really ****g frustrating to watch them lock on to the guy and have good shots and even identify him and they still don’t kill him. Hmmmm….these are terminators they are built to destroy and not kidnap.
This is supposed to be the same SKYNET an ultra smart computer network. You gonna tell me they won't put 2 and 2 together and realize Reese was sent back about 9 months before John was born?
This is the network that sent back machines in time that killed anybody who was associated with John Connor or just because their name happened to be Sarah Connor. All because they wanted this guy eliminated by all means, so they finally catch their break and use the opportunity to instead of kill Kyle Reese use Kyle Reese as bait to lure John Connor to them so they could kill them both. Even though they should be aware Reese is his pappy and if they eliminate Reese then by default John Connor is ****g dead also. I mean seriously who the **** thought that actually made any sense?
It’s like they just shot the first draft of the script and never bothered revising and **** to give their movie some real logic that works with the internal logic of the Terminator trilogy. What a ****g piece of garbage story. So uninvolving, no tension whatsoever you know Connor will survive, you know Reese will survive and they do nothing to even make it interesting with those facts intact, so why the **** am I even watching this ********? It was like something that really just went nowhere it felt pointless.
Marcus Wright – Is Sam Worthington the next big thing like he’s being hyped to be because of AVATAR and Clash of the Titans hype? maybe. Did this movie show me that he might be? Not really cause he wasn’t directed properly. There are scenes where he goes from his natural Australian accent to his American accent and back. Like at the beginning of that tremendously horrendous intro scene that had one of the most unintentionally hilarious lines I’ve ever heard (“this is what death tastes like”
.
I laughed so much during that intro scene as my friend who was with me and a major Terminator fanboy just shook his head in complete disbelief and it pretty much set up the mediocrity of everything else that followed. It’s not his fault but the entire arc of this character is ultimately pointless and boring because he ends up being just a really pointless plot device to show us an early Kyle Reese and give John Connor a new heart, wtf?
I mean you bring in a guy that you could set up as a very beneficial weapon for the resistance to use against SKYNET but you don’t go that route and instead have us follow him with no real development and forced pathos and melodrama just to kill him off anyway and make him irrelevant by the end? where is the payoff? Again I ask who the **** thought that actually made any sense? It’s like the writers never even took writing or something just…damn.
John Connor – What should’ve been the best part of this whole ordeal turned out to be one of it’s greatest hindrances. This character did not remind me of the John Connor we met in the other movies whatsoever and of course he didn’t remind me of the John Connor we always hear about either. This guy was a damn toy soldier who didn’t even act human he was as cold as a Terminator.
Seriously Bale was so damn distant you made no connection with him. I connected with Nick Stahl and I connected with that punk kid Furlong because you felt some humanity in the character. Not this time it’s like a whole new character like Bale never saw the original movies and just decided to play “overacting Intense Jackass” for like the 30th time in his career.
What made this **** so apparent scenes like when they tell him he’s first on the list of people to be wiped out by SKYNET for instance. When he asked “who’s number 2” it was like his Batman interrogating somebody for info he was so intense he didn’t sound like a concerned human being or a surprised one there was no empathy and emotion in his voice whatsoever and his entire performance is like this. This is why he has like 0 chemistry with Bryce Dallas Howard and their relationship doesn’t seem believable like you believed Stahl and Claire Danes would eventually hook up and help lead the resistance.
I read online that they originally wanted Connor to not show up till the third act and just be an urban myth like character who nobody has seen cause he lived in the resistance sub and just made radio broadcast. If that is indeed true then I think that would’ve been stronger than what we got here. I heard this is back when Bale was considered for Marcus but Bale wanted John Connor and he got that role. He also wanted the role significantly beefed up which seriously hurt the flick in the end and this is why Jonah Nolan was brought up for those little touchups to the script.
Of course had they gone the original route it would be a catch 22 cause we would get that Marcus becomes John ending which would actually make Marcus relevant but the first 3 movies and John Connor irrelevant. So we ended up with the ending that made Marcus completely irrelevant which still sucked ass because again this is the guy we follow the whole movie. They shouldn’t have taken either route and just scrapped this script for a new one altogether.
Danny Elfman’s score – Or should I say lack of score firstly it seldomly appeared in the flick secondly it sounded so forced and over the top for the scenes it was supposed to accentuate. They should’ve just rehired Brad Fiedel to get an authentic Terminator movie score that actually works with the picture this is the same mistake T3 made. But considering how amateur this movie seemed over all like a big budget fan fiction piece I can’t blame Elfman too much. He had to force his score like the movie tried to force everything else some of his worst work and I love Elfman's work like it was my own.
The Editing – Holy **** is this bad. You could tell there was a scene where the hydrobot thing got caught by how awkward the scene when they had it strapped to the table came in. The scene where Marcus confronts John when he’s being chased we go from John agreeing to allow him to infiltrate SKYNET for him to John yelling “WHAT ARE YOU?” to him. It seemed like two different takes on the same scene were spliced together cause the tone was so off it didn’t even progress right.
Not to mention the fact that John even yelled at him when he was like 4 feet away was greatly hilarious and made that **** more comical. Or how about when Moon Bloodgood meets Marcus? So she’s in the rain with eye makeup on right behind Marcus one minute and then literally like a second later she’s in a dried up land not soaked wet and Marcus is nowhere near her and these rapist guys we never even saw earlier are like right next to her and the eye make up? all gone. There are many more ******** and badly edited scenes like this.
Sidenote - I won’t even get started on the forced and failed attempt at “romance and bonding” between Worthington and Bloodgood. I like her too I was a fan of Journeyman she was good there so I know it’s just her trying to work through McG’s incompetence as a director.
McG - The dude couldn’t even tell he had major major script problems and commission his writers for a decent revision. This dude is a hack and this movie proves it. I never saw anything by him really except We Are Marshall which I thought was a good and more competently made movie than this one. So I never got the venom that was spewed towards him by all the geek sites on the net till I saw this movie and the horrible editing was key in showing me that.
The dude couldn't even properly collaborate with his editor and he calls himself a director? I will officially never ever see a movie that says “Directed by McG” ever again, I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt I stayed away from spoiler heavy reviews and news & everything but he definitely failed to deliver.
I won't mention the little walking carrot top prop bag that was Reese's sidekick beyond this sentence.
The T-800 – This was such a big mistake. First of all they were created in the mid 2020’s not in 2018 as a way to finally successfully infiltrate and take down the resistance. But ok fine I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt I mean clearly this is not the original future we heard off the time traveling back and forth greatly affected what this future ended up becoming since it fed SKYNET way way more ammo and information than they initially had in the original timeline because of this.
So ok considering that, I’d buy that this T-800 is different from the ones we’re familiar with in that they’re bigger and way more durable and stronger than the ones we saw before.
However you should at least give us an explanation as to these changes and the effects it had. It doesn’t even take a minute to come up with a reasonable one all you have to do is explain it by saying SKYNET had way more intel on it because of the ones they sent into the past but nah they couldn’t even do that. So we end up asking ourselves questions like “this same model dipped himself in molten lava and melted in one picture but this new version of the T-800 gets drenched in molten lava and gets up from that completely intact?” I mean seriously, what….the…****….ever? can't the movie at least explain why that happens it wouldn't even have to take 5 seconds? again this script should’ve been completely scrapped.
The Ugly:
Bottom line this movie could’ve been something epic and amazing and instead it’s a generic piece of garbage. We should’ve never ever heard this story to begin with. When I say I want a future war movie what I and other fans mean is what Cameron hinted at in the past. What happens after SKYNET is seemingly defeated and all these terminators and Kyle Reese are sent to the past in 2029?
That story has never ever been told and gives you potential to mine a lot of great new ideas that could add to instead of hinder the damn mythology. Not only that more importantly John Connor is ****g vulnerable again cause we don’t know what happens to him after he “wins the war”. He could still seemingly die and face some real danger that would have the audience concerned cause we don’t know where the story is going after that point since it’s never been explored on film ever.
We know what the story this proposed new trilogy is trying leads to so why even bother wasting our time with 3 movies when you could tell just one that leaves us even more curious about this universe instead of going “ho hum so that’s how Kyle learned about the shotgun sling?” or “we know John and Kyle survive all this cause John has to send Kyle back to the past” it seems very pointless and uneventful & it's also unmemorable. The fact that they tried so hard to force a new trilogy instead of focusing on making a great stand alone sequel is the first step to what crippled the **** out of this movie.
As much as I love Terminator I seriously don’t see myself ever seeing this again ever and to be perfectly honest have like zero interest in a Terminator 5 now. I’m good with the trilogy. One more thing SMMFH @ Terry Crews' "role" if it could even be called that, I guess an example of more bad editing since we didn't even know he was in it till we saw the dead body but he could've at least been cast in Common's role instead cause he probably wouldn't have been as wooden.
t:
at the crowd's apparent inability to read a situation.
