In cinemas now [M]
Director: McG
Runtime: 113mins
With Hollywood (and other movie industries around the world) reinventing, reimagining, and regurgitating every possible idea they can, it’s not too surprising to see franchises featuring spotty-faced wizards, gravel-voiced couriers, remarkably banal ‘symbologists,’ and surprisingly nimble sexagenarian archaeologists – the more things change the more things stay the same, right? There are even plans afoot to produce a new chapter in the story of a very cranky, post-apocalyptic ex-road copper! But word has it that a certain anti-Semitic froot loop will probably not reprise his role.
So how does one bring the next episode of the Terminator franchise to the screen without the Governator? (Apparently he’s a little busy at the moment trying to keep the economy of the state of California afloat, and doesn’t have time to lace on the leathers) Well, if you’re director McG, and you’re working with an imaginative pair of writers like John Brancato and Michael Ferris, you return to basics – even if the basics are in the future, that is.
Terminator Salvation opens on the 2003 execution of convicted killer, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who has been petitioned by researcher Dr Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter) to donate his soon-to-be lifeless body to science in order to bring some good to his dire situation. Sealing the deal with a kiss, Wright watches the lights go out, and wakes in the middle of a fierce unfamiliar battle. He staggers out into the open and finds a blasted landscape, and a world that bears little resemblance to the one he died in fifteen years before.
Diehard Terminator-fans will immediately understand that Wright is in the middle of a battle between the last remnants of humanity and the technological might of the malignant artificial intelligence, Skynet. And since he needs to take sides, it’s mighty convenient that he bumps into the local Los Angeles branch of the human resistance: all two of them. Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) – does that name sound familiar? – is a pragmatic young fighter desperate to meet and fight alongside the mankind’s last hero, John Connor (Christian Bale); happily, Wright seems to be headed in the same direction. But things are not necessarily what they seem…
All the elements are here for a very satisfying sci-fi thriller, and McG and his mates do not disappoint. Despite some decidedly cheesy moments, there is some bloody amazing technology on display here, and the wonders of CGI will keep those traditionalists in the audience smug in their seats. Well, he said he’d be back, didn’t he?
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