Terminator Salvation is the next stage in John Connor’s life – he’s lived through Judgment Day, and he’s starting to get a reputation in the resistance.  Some people believe that he’s humanity’s savior, but others are skeptical.  It seems like John’s popularity has been spread by a series of radio messages he sends – which he begins and ends with “This is John Connor – and if you’re listening to this, you are the Resistance.”

But if you want the truth, this really isn’t John Connor’s movie.  The central figure in the movie is really Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington.

Before I say what I’m about to say, let me tell you that I love Christian Bale.  I’ve seen most of the movies he’s been in, and I think he’s done a great job in all of them.  From American Psycho to The Machinist to The Prestige, I think he’s a wonderful actor.

John Connor, though, he is not.  I thought Bale’s performance was too dry and too dark – lacking a lot of the humanity that I think John Connor is supposed to have.  For the whole movie, I never really bought Bale as the kind of person who can unite the human race when they’re on the brink of death.

Plus, Bale overuses his “Batman” voice – and I’m sure that greatly increased his annoyingness.

Worthington as Wright is great, though.  I’m sure most of you know by now (it’s all over the trailers) that Marcus Wright is a machine who believes himself to be human.  Its because his consciousness (as well as some of his human organs) were transferred into a machine endoskeleton – creating the most “human” of the infiltrator terminators.  And I thought Worthington was really convincing in most of his scenes, showing the interior struggle of knowing that most of his humanity has been stripped away.

I had read some stuff about this movie beforehand, and I thought that the revelation that Marcus was a terminator was supposed to be one of the big twists of the movie.  But the trailers were very revealing about Marcus’ actual identity, and the film itself doesn’t seem to care if you know the truth or not.  There are a couple hints prior to the revelation, and I think most people would’ve seen something coming from the very beginning.

The film begins as Wright is approached, in 2003, while on death row by Dr. Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter), Pre-Judgment Day) with the idea of donating his body to science.  Kogan works for Cyberdyne Systems, and she promises Marcus the chance to have a second chance.

He essentially wakes up in 2018, and he tries to make sense of the post-apocalyptic world.  He escapes from the ruins of a human-machine battle, and he makes his way to Los Angeles.  There, he is immediately attacked by a T-600 and saved by a young Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, who also played Chekov in Star Trek).

Yelchin is one of Hollywood’s rising stars, and he gets a huge chance to shine in this movie (much moreso than in Trek).  A lot of people are raving about his performance, and he does do a great job as a younger version of Michael Biehn’s hero from the original movie.  I suppose the only problem is that Reese is only showcased in the beginning of the movie – he mostly plays the “damsel in distress” in the second and third acts.

Reese is captured by Skynet (it is revealed early that Reese, not Connor, is Skynet’s #1 priority), and Marcus is brought to Connor.  Wounded by a magnetized mine, Connor soon learns that Wright is part-machine.  The resistance plans on interrogating (and eventually killing) Marcus, but a pilot in the resistance (Moon Bloodgood) saves Marcus and lets him escape.  She was saved by Marcus earlier in the film, and she believes he is not the enemy.

The rest of the film deals with the attempt to destroy Skynet and save Reese from Skynet’s headquarters in San Francisco.  The resistance has found a signal that is capable of shutting down any Skynet machine.  Meanwhile, Marcus heads to Skynet, promising that his “lack of humanity” will allow him complete access to Skynet.

It all seems to be working until Skynet reveals to Marcus that it was all a trap.  The signal was designed to draw out the leaders of the resistance (hiding on a submarine), hoping to destroy humanity’s leaders and the human resistance.

The first part succeeds, but the second part fails thanks to John Connor.  The resistance was about to launch a worldwide attack on Skynet, but Connor uses his influence to stop the attack so that Reese can be saved (because if Reese dies, John will die – causing all kinds of havoc).

Skynet does, however, succeed in drawing Connor himself to their base of operation.  Connor sneaks into Skynet’s base, and he starts a jail break.  As soon as Connor finds Reese, he runs into a brand-new T-800.

That’s right, people.  Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Kinda.

The Governator declined to physically participate in this movie, for obvious reasons, but through CGI and a body double, they were able to give us a fairly-convincing version of the 1984 Arnold.  They don’t focus on the face much (and the T-800 is skinned to its exoskeleton pretty quickly), but I thought it wasn’t nearly as cheesy as it could’ve been.  It allowed Arnold and his famous terminator to stay in the film.

Meanwhile, Marcus is given the chance to decide between his humanity and his new machine self, and Marcus chooses to save John Connor and Reese.  And he does…but not until after Connor is impaled by the T-800.  Connor seems on the brink of death, with his heart failing.

But Wright, feeling he’s already received his second chance, offers to give Connor the same opportunity.  He sacrifices himself, giving John his heart – saving humanity’s savior.

Which is funny because its the polar opposite of the film’s original ending.  As I’m sure some of you know, the script’s original ending was leaked a long time ago – and it was switched when negative feedback swarmed the Internet.  In the original ending, Connor was actually going to die – but they were going to arrange some kind of “skin transplant” to Marcus – allowing the human leader to live through Marcus’ metallic body.

And when I was watching the movie, I thought they’d actually used the “rejected” ending – it does seem like John is going to die.

But would that ending have been better?  There certainly would’ve been a cool aspect to John Connor living on as part-machine, but it wouldn’t have really been John.  As far as I remember from what I read, John Connor was actually going to die.  And I’m not sure audiences are ready for that.

The movie ends with an uncertain future.  Humanity has dealt a huge blow, destroying Skynet’s base in San Francisco – but they also lost all their leaders.  John will, undoubtedly, take command of the resistance, just in time for the sequel.

So what is the verdict?  I think it was a fun movie – the CGI and action sequences were very nice, and I think the story is strong enough.  We see all kinds of new terminators that we’ve never seen (big ones, small ones, powerful ones, weak ones, humanoid ones, non-humanoid ones, and ones that travel by land, sea, and air) – and that was definitely cool.  There’s also something really cool about seeing an all-out war between man and machine.

And I really liked the connections that were made to previous movies.  I liked that they tried to incorporate Arnold into the movie, I liked the way that Yelchin modelled his role after Michael Biehn’s performance, and I really liked that Linda Hamilton was brought back, in voice only, as Sarah Connor.  John listens to tapes that his mother recorded, trying to find any clues/hints/wisdom that his mother has left behind.  I thought that was really cool.

They also brought back the character of Kate Connor – incorporating the third movie as well.  Bryce Dallas Howard replaces Claire Danes in the role, and while Kate has an extremely small role in the film, overall, she is shown to be pregnant.  The T-850 said that the Connor children will play a role in the future, and this is our first look at them.

Of course, you have to look past some plot holes – some of humanity’s bases are hidden underground, but there seems to be a pretty big base in the middle of the open that operates in daylight.  And its a little unbelievable that Skynet only relied on one terminator to protect its primary headquarters – I realize that John and Marcus easily accessed the building because it was a trap – but Skynet shouldn’t have given them any chance to escape.

Also, giving Marcus the opportunity to choose his humanity seems very un-Skynet-like.  There didn’t seem to be any doubt, at least not to me, that he was going to choose to save John.

All in all, I think it was a fun summer blockbuster movie.  If you want to be entertained for a couple of hours, I think it is worth a look.  If you’re only vaguely interested, check it out when it hits video – it is certainly the most unique Terminator film, and it does its hardest to turn the franchise on its ear.

One last thing – I’ve heard comparisons to Star Trek, and I don’t really like the comparison because they’re two completely different movies.  They’re both futuristic popcorn sci-fi CGI-fests, but that’s really where I think the line is drawn.  Outside of that, they were both entertaining – and that’s all I really want out of my summer movie.