by Lisa Hemsley

Created on: June 10, 2010   Last Updated: June 11, 2010

The world has been taken over by machines who are being run by Skynet. John Connor is running a resistance team who are trying but not very successfully to take out the machine. John has to act fast as his and everyone else’s life hangs in the balance when he discovers that he must save his father Kyle Reese who went back in time to prevent the machine from taking over years ago.

John sets out on his mission when he meets Marcus Wright, he is a loner who is also trying to bring down the machine, Marcus explains that he knows where Kyle is and now they must work together to save Kyle. Things do not go to plan as John has to disobey orders to complete his mission. Will Marcus and John be able to save Kyle and just what is the mystery surrounding Marcus?

The plot summary which I have given is only brief, there is a little more to the film, but I feel that I would be spoiling it for those who are yet to see the film if I give any more of it away. For me this film did not appeal too much, because I could not remember what had happened in the previous films, but after a quick update from hubby I was able to understand what was and had happened in the past and follow this storyline. I did find the storyline was good, but so much more could have been done with it. I just could not get over the feeling that the makers were trying the drag out the whole Terminator franchise with this film as there was not too much to learn from it.

Christian Bale played the role of John Anton Yelchin and Helena Bonham Carter. They all gave good performance and made for entertaining viewing.

There were a lot of special effects throughout this film and for me they were one of the best bits of the film. They were all well made and extremely detailed. The terminator machines looked good and I loved how they fought with the humans and I did find the interactions between human and effects worked well and looked very real. There is a lot of violence in this film and it all seemed to work and fit well into the storyline and this is another factor which made the film so watchable. The makeup used on Sam Worthington was excellent and looked very real. The music was good, but not very memorable, it did hep with the drama and tensions for the scenes it was used in but it was nothing to shout about and certainly not worth buying on a soundtrack.

A lot of the film had a futuristic feel to it despite everywhere being destroyed and the lack of humans and I found this worked well and made the storyline move believable. We did get some lovely scenes over the derelict desert in America and I found this to be a lovely addition to the film. The costumes were all good and suited the characters and again this for me had a futuristic feel.

The DVD which we have does not have any bonus features but this is no great loss for me as I am not a fan of them anyway. The running time of this film is 1 hour and 50 minutes and I think this was more than long enough. The certificate is a 12 as there are moderate violence and action scenes and I do definitely agree with this and would even verge on giving this a 15 certificate. We paid just £5 for this DVD from Tesco which I felt to be a good and fair price.

Overall, I can only give this film 3 stars. The acting was excellent especially from Sam Worthington, but I would have liked more from Bale and the whole overall storyline. Maybe this film is just one too far in the Terminator franchise and there definitely should not be any more. One for fans of the previous films, but do not expect too much from it.

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