Kyle Terry is DrChocolate and my good friend from college who I asked to help me out with my movie reviews. My budget limits the amount of movies I can see and the good Dr, while having similar taste in movies as me, often has differing viewpoints that I think will be valuable to the site.
Whiz-bang fizz pop. That’s where director McG excels, and he shows it in Terminator Salvation with many many dogfights, fistfights, and gunfights. I’m sure anybody reading this knows the Terminator back story, so I’ll skip it and dive right in: McG, he of the infinitely vexing moniker, actually acquits himself quite well to the Terminator material and luckily for him, the parts that seem destined to spin off into la-la land are saved by an effectively gritty Christian Bale. The action scenes pop and move furiously, but not without a sense of purpose. They, barely I’ll admit, transcend the Michael Bay action-for-actions-sake vortex, but they plunge, swerve, and explode on a grand scale and are generally effective because you care about the cast. As mentioned, I think McG needs to graciously thank his cast for keeping this movie in line. The performances from Bale and Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese are particularly good. Newcomer Sam Worthington is charismatic as a mysterious outsider (although the previews completely spoiled why he’s mysterious), this despite that fact that he doesn’t do much but glower and fight, though I believe that’s more the scripts fault than his. Bryce Dallas Howard is a victim of the screen writing as well; her role seems ancillary and underwritten. The entire Terminator saga has not come without its fair share of clunky, brick heavy dialogue and some poorly manufactured emotion and this installment is no exception in that department either. However, I ended up liking this movie far more than I thought I would. Recommended for a weekend of surprisingly well-made whiz-bang fizz pop.