Actually, I think that's pretty much what they meant.

I really enjoyed this.

The plot is thin and even nonsensical at times, but stupidity never took me out of the movie, which happens with movies such as Transformers. And Bale is one-dimensional in his supporting role. And the very end feels a bit rushed, and doesn't completely reward the audience.

But other than that, it kicked ass. Worthington is awesome as the lead and his character is badass, complex, and even touching. Also other supporting roles are interesting and well-played, particularly the kid who plays Kyle Reese (He was great in Star Trek as well). Only Bale and the black kid seemed kind of off.

The action scenes are first rate, and there are many, many of them. Very exciting and visceral stuff, staged and filmed with great skill. I find it strange how so many people talk shit about McG, when he is in fact a MUCH better action director than someone like Michael Bay. He's more on and off with drama scenes, but they are also done well for the most part.

The script should have had a lot more work, as now this comes off as a kind of a Frankenstein's monster of different drafts that don't really gel together. But I had a lot of fun, this was an intense, exciting and well made popcorn movie with a terrific lead character. I will watch it again.

7/10.

In which case they're majorly confused, 'cause that's not how time travel in Terminator works.

Yeah...but that's what they meant. And time travel is not logical in about 98% of movies and TV series anyway.

In my opinion it depends on what are the established rules of the film universe.

In Back To The Future Marty was going to go "poof!" if his parents wouldn't fall in love. But they established this in the 1st act of the story, so we as an audience knew the rules of that fictional universe. And BTTF was more of fantasy adventure comedy anyway, so they could get away with silliness like Marty's siblings disappearing from the photo.

But Terminator movies have always seemed to have a more "hard science" approach to time travel. Suddenly taking the BTTF route was off-putting.

Time Travel is not logical, period.

Tell that to Stephen Hawking.

I'm watching this on HBO and it's boring. Seriously. This film doesn't have a pulse.

I liked it when it came out, but it is a fucking chore now. Easily the worst of the franchise and no need to make another.

lol, this is SO true. On opening night, I was all right with it. Maybe even enthusiastic. Enjoyed Worthington, thought it had a couple cool action sequences, etc. But it's damn near impossible to sit through on TV. Weird.

If you want to know whether a movie is actually good and will hold up in the long run, be sure to read Witherberry on opening night.

I'm hype-proof.

Terminator Salvation

I really disliked this back in 2009, but I just watched it again (supposedly the Director's Cut, but I couldn't see any difference between this and 2009 version) and it's actually quite a good film. The colour palette of the film paints a landscape of dread and ruin with the greys and dirty browns. The story is solid. The acting is fine by Bale, Ironside, Worthington (surprisingly) and Dallas Howard. Where the film comes unstuck is in the dialogue department. It's really, really bad. There are countless repackaged lines in here like "I'll be back" and "Come with me if you want to live", and the original lines are quite bad too ("If you point a gun at someone, you better be prepared to pull the trigger" comes to mind). The story keeps to the Terminator mythology quite well, but it does lose itself in the time travel section. If Reese hasn't been sent back yet, then how can Connor even exist? It doesn't make much sense.

It's a better film than Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, even if it doesn't have the quality to its action sequences like T3 does. The lack of Arnie is also not ideal, but these are necessary sacrifices in order to get development in the Terminator arc (instead of revisiting the old machine-sent-back-in-time template). What I need explaining from these Terminator films is why they can't send more than one Terminator back to 1984. That would improve their chances greatly. Or send them back to 1964 and kill Sarah when she's a baby. Or keep sending more back to the same year....so when Kyle Reese dies in 1984, another Terminator is waiting to just kill Sarah. There are tons of possibilities. Perhaps they can only send one back every 7 years, or maybe time travel isn't a fully working technology by that point and/or they cannot send someone back further than, say, 40 years or so. If that's the case, then Genesis needs to have some explanation at least.

B-

Uh... just watched for the first time. Jesus, this was awful.

It's such a cool way to take the franchise too. I think the series biggest flaw started here. They really should have stuck with Stahl and Danes. Bale as False Profit Conner really didn't add much. And the future that looked so cool and bleak became a boring Call of Duty knockoff.

The biggest thing to come of this was Bale's on set meltdown. Still hilarious to this day.

The series meltdown only started with Genisys.

T3 was already far down from the first two films and Salvation was just a new direction, that might not have been a great success but I cannot imagine how a second film with Danes and Stahl could have done better.

Yeah next to Genisys this is still one of my least favorite Terminator films. I always found Bale's John Connor to be really unlikable and honestly about half way through it does get pretty boring IMO. I actually don't mind Sam Worthington's character in this though, and I really liked Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, but the writing for them just isn't that great either.

Hell I even kind of enjoy a lot of the practical action sequences and the visual effects involved, but this movie just doesn't have a good energy flow to it at all.

C+

I’m pretty sure we’d all be okay if NO Terminator movies came out after 1991. That said, my low expectations for this particular installment have consistently paid off.... I’ve quite enjoyed it the two or three times I’ve seen it over the years. Third best in the trilogy. B+

oops I mean “series”? “franchise”? the whole thing seems so sad, like T1 and T2 are iconic and then I give consistently fewer fucks. Will probably never see Genysis and Dark Fate is unlikely too.

I wish we could combine the harvester sequence with the reunion of Sarah and Carl and then add Emilia Clarke in there somewhere for a perfect Terminator 4.

Dark Fate is so, so much better than this. Both have characters I don't care for but at least Dark Fate felt like one movie. For the first 2/3s the scenes with Bale and scenes with Worthington feel like 2 different movies.

I agree. Dark Fate has a lot of fucking problems, and I could give less of a damn about Grace or Danny, but Arnold and Hamilton presences really bring some much needed personality and energy to that movie that this movie just didn't have IMO.