aka “We’re Doomed”
[if I can prevent just one person from seeing this shit, it will be worth it.]
I saw Terminator: Salvation last night… the best part of this disaster was Christian Bale’s rant on the Cinematographer, which, sadly is not in the film.
It is the future and humanity’s survival depends on “The Resistance”, which is made up of a collective group of idiots all following John Connor—repeatedly called “a prophet” so we know he’s always right. Hunted down by Skynet at every turn, they still feel the need to live above ground and make themselves available for being killed and captured.
No one can capture John Connor—that dude cannot be hurt. I’m not sure what John Connor eats or wears, but everyone should follow his example as bullets, bombs (nuclear), and Terminators never leave him with a scratch (except for one ill-timed steel bar, more on that later). Meanwhile, everyone around him dies. It’s like bizarr-o Star Trek where the red shirt guy is the only one to live.
Of course, John Connor is up against Skynet that can recognize faces from a distance, can battle through molten metal, have their legs blown off and keep moving, but they don’t have the common sense to avoid a hastily put together rope across the road, or stand under an anvil. They will also let a large group of resistance fighters to gain access to a research facility—so they can trap them—and allow them to download vital information about their vulnerabilities. Makes perfect sense…
Skynet can locate a human within seconds of turning on music, but somehow can’t find a large military base, complete with a massive hangar. Another one issue with the Terminators is that they can’t seem to shoot straight. Humans can hit a Terminator at fifty paces, while running with a small child—however, since they are strong, they won’t go down. You have to blow them up multiple times in order to get them to drop. Some machines! I move my iPhone too fast and I have to reboot; kick the shit out of a Terminator and it begs for more, so why is it that it can shoot 1000 rounds at a slow moving child and it misses every time? Every. Fucking. Time. Someone needs to talk to R&D and tell them that before they attach skin to a Terminator, to fix the fucking targeting mechanism. Why not use the same ones that are located on the hunter/destroyer ships? They lock onto another craft and—boom!—it’s over. T-1000 meanders around a desert, wastes a lot of amo and then gets hit by an anvil. Terminator, I call you coyote.
As for “The Resistance”, well, I’m surprised they made it past day two. After stating the Terminators “hunt better at night”, everyone seems to love wandering around at night, lighting BIG fires for anyone to see. Are they trying to get killed? They do a heck of a job. They die quickly and easily. Everyone seems to be surprised when their family does not return from a raid—yet, John Connor’s girlfriend seems surprised to see him live… didn’t she read the script? Well, if the director doesn’t, why should she?
McG—a douchebag name if I’ve ever heard one—directed Charlie’s Angles and the seminal masterpiece Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle, so he knows quality filmmaking. If I may go back to the indiscriminant fires… for some reason L.A., long-since destroyed by nuclear bombs, has small fires burning every block. Nothing big, just a pile of tires that somehow did not melt in the nuclear holocaust, now seems to burn… every block… for no apparent reason other than to burn.
The battle scenes ably mishandled by Mc—I’ve shortened from McG, because I think it’s cooler—are full of explosions and shots that are designed to disorient us, without ever giving us an idea of what is going on.
Speaking of not knowing what’s going on, our lead (not Bale) but some guy called Marcus Wright [note: the main characters ALL have first and last names… supporting cast does not. No one calls Bale’s character John or Connor, it’s always John Connor, always Marcus Wright, and
Kyle Reese. It’s like they all know they’re in a bad movie.] Marcus doesn’t know he’s a cyborg, but we do, we get told he has “a good heart” and “a strong heart” often [note: clumsy foreshadowing.] Eventually, it all gets explained to Marcus, by Skynet (played by Helena Bonham Carter in her most believable role since… forget it, she was shit, too)… after he broke in and downloaded ALL of Skynet. Why did he need to have it explained? It’s all up there in his head. Heaven knows they couldn’t have shown us, they had to explain it before it happens. The mark of a clumsy director… now referred to simply as M.
Marcus Wright, who is so remorseful for killing his brother and two cops—for some reason I believe we’re supposed to think he had a good reason, as he openly wonders if he deserves a second chance. Dude, you’re in the middle of Hell on Earth and you’re wondering what you did to deserve such a gift? You killed your brother and two cops. Yeah, you should suffer this fate as long as possible. Or maybe “eh” (no letter, no complete sounding of the letter, just the grunt of a noise, much like Bale’s acting) is going after that niche market of women who return to men that have abused them: “I can change him!”
I shit you not when I say that is love interest rescues him because she knows he’s human deep down... in his big healthy human heart. And he proves her right by offering one of the two human organs he has (the other being his brain—not his junk. But I will say that Skynet gave him a nice package). John Connor, who just happens to have a steel bar sticking through his heart is, apparently, a perfect match, because no one bothered to test him. And no one thought, “We’re in a field hospital in the desert, is this a good spot for a transplant? Yes? Really...? No worries about rejection? Okay. Really...?"
Clearly, no one entertained the idea that while John Connor is their "Spiritual Leader", this guy has ALL OF FREAKIN’ SKYNET IN HIS HEAD and can tell them anything they need to know. Nope, they crack open Marcus Wright like a can of beans and pop the new heart into John Connor. Because, like directing this movie, heart transplants involve no thinking ahead or ability to perform that task.
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