Terminator: Salvation
directed by McG
written by John D. Brancato, Michael Ferris
starring Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter, Anton Yelchin, Jadagrace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, Michael Ironside, Ivan G'Vera
In this, the fourth installment of the Terminator Franchise, a fine effort to match human interest with the cacophony of machines completely out of whack is effectively rendered. The characters in this film have a resonance and their actions matter which is rare in this sort of film and welcomed here.
John Connor (Bale) has been fighting the dragon since before he was born. At this level he is engrossed in a battle against machines and is, as part of the order of things, leading the resistance. He has dozens of men beneath him and is married to Kate (Howard) a childhood friend whom he encountered in the third film knowing she was destined to be the one. Connor in this film is highly conflicted and unsure of the efficacy of his mission. He is stressed and occasionally confused and does not play the part of the confident leader with any consistency.
Marcus is a cyborg with human parts who has been put together when his body was donated to science following his execution for a triple homicide a few years back. He imagines himself to be human although when he is revealed to John Connor as part machine he is instantly perceived as a threat. The film takes place in 2018, fifteen years after Judgement Day has wiped out half the world's population. The rest are being hunted down by the machines and Connor and his crew are working to put an end to their operations. It's a daunting task because Skynet, the entity responsible for turning the machines against humans, is globally connected through networks with no central hub that might be destroyed in order to shut it down. They are everywhere and nowhere simultaneously.
The film has a grayish look throughout and it appears and feels decidedly dirty which is appropriate concerning the subject matter; the sand and dirt tend to cover one's skin as the film develops. It's a glorious filth, however, as it tends to elevate the nature of the mission to a more deliberate position because the viewer feels connected directly to the story. This is also accomplished through the various characterizations which are written decidedly well and contain much information that is necessary to take hold of the plot.
There is tremendous energy in this film although the massive action undertakings do become tedious and tiresome particularly during the first third of the film. It takes about forty minutes for the story to effectively kick in but once it does it remains cohesive and intentional for the duration. The energy flows easily and the final showdown subsequently matters.
Christian Bale is frighteningly intense throughout this film and its easy to understand why he engaged in his tirade during filming. John Connor in this version is clearly the fighter he was trained to be but he's also something else. He's a man whose grip on the situation at hand becomes occasionally tenuous as he faces the very real possibility of extinction. In the end, though, his tenacity comes through and he puts himself on the line to complete the mission.
As with the first three films this one expresses a somber tale about the threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of machines that have transcended any use humans initially put them to. It's man's inconceivable hubris run horrifically amok and the very things that have been created to assist mankind become the unruly and unpredictable shadow that explodes into consciousness solely to destroy any vestige of humanity that appears before them. Man's obsessed reliance on pure rationality creates an environment where unconscious elements emerge to create a semblance of balance, a clearing of the playing field, that humans are incapable of actualizing for themselves.
There is a sense that John and the rest of the resistance are maneuvering themselves clumsily in the darkest recesses of the unconscious in search of the ever-elusive light that blinks menacingly somewhere off in the distance. They too want to be realized, to express themselves in blistering, certain terms and they must endure a relentless assault to accomplish this goal. They long to reach the higher regions where their only hope lies and it takes tremendous skill and luck to survive the onslaught of the machines.
Overall, this film is both a terrific action film and a bona fide morality tale. It gainfully puts forth a terrifying notion that man's technological prowess might lead to a revolt by the machines who subsequently gain control of every facet of the electronic grid. Science, causality and reason become a tyranny when they are not offset by the imagination, creativity and the ability to think intuitively and less rigidly. In this film, mankind has lost control of their creations at their gravest peril and the entire planet becomes mere fodder for the killer machine's self-programmed assault. Ultimately, the film shows that certain men can imagine themselves providing their populations with a chance at grace but unwittingly unleashing a great number of devils upon the earth.