Terminator 4: Salvation

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Anybody see this movie?

I just came back from the midnight showing... and my verdict?

A total waste of time and money.

It's sad to see that Christian Bale, a very talented and prolific actor, had to do anything with this incompetent film... Nothing but a major lack of character development (the robots showed more development then the humans), lack a comprehensive story (since this series also deals with time travel, expect a whole lot of inconsistencies!), chock full of cliches, horrible script, and not even the slightest semblance of realism (because clearly humans have better aim than machines do).

Yeah, I know. A.I. Cybernetics waging war against humans is anything but realistic, but being able to catapult a robotic motorcycle into a helicopter is just beyond stupid. I think "abysmal" is a better word for this.

In fact, we now coined a term for when a movie reaches it's point of failure and no return. It's called "anti-aircraft motorcycle". It also doesn't help that this film was directed by the same guy who did Charlie's Angels.

And this movie certainly reached the anti-aircraft motorcycle point early on... The only thing it had was some interesting camera shots, pretty robotic motorcycles, some decent action scenes and explosions... and I suppose a quick appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger's face (which was just planted with CGI...).

Score? I think a 3/10 is generous enough... Excuse me while I go rent and watch Terminator 2 as an act of repentance. Perhaps James Cameron will forgive me...

Or perhaps I should go see Star Trek this weekend.

[Cognitive Gear]

I've been watching the reviews of this movie carefully, and I'm sad to say that this seems to be the common opinion.

I was really hoping that this would be good, too. After all, every time they showed a clip of the future war in the previous movies, it felt like a teaser for a full blown post-apocalyptic war movie.

Ah well. I'll probably try to catch it in the cheap theater.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

Worse than T3 even? That was horrible, although the female Terminator was pretty cool.
I was going to see this because Christian Bale is awesome and the first 2 movies were very good (especially T2) but this sounds like one to avoid.
Thanks for the heads-up Ryan.

The trailer made it look good. What a missed opportunity.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

Honestly, W4J... T3 had a more consistent story than T4.

T3 was better... as sad as it is to say. I didn't think it could even be possible!

This movie can safely be rated as: Epic Fail.

[Scarecrow]

BLAH BLAH BLAH I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!

I'm still hoping it's good and everyone else is wrong... I've been looking forward to this movie for a while and the trailer looked awesome. Plus I hear Linda Hamilton's voice has a cameo in this... woot!

I'm gonna pretend I didn't read the above. One question. Are you a real big Terminator fan or just a casual one?

(And if it's true, it does suck and part of my soul dies... there's always Avatar to look forward too)

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I'm a casual fan but I think Ryan is a bigger fan (not entirely sure though).

[Scarecrow]

Well the score is above 8.0 on IMDb ^_^ See hope lives... it's good!!

Ya ya, IMDb, not the most reliable rating system but generally I can get a good idea if the movie is gonna be decent, mediocre, or garbage from the ratings (but only if it's in the genres I like). 8-9... usually ends up being a really good movie or I can see why it was rated so high. 7+... 7's end up prett decent at least although there have been some ones I didn't care for much. 6 is pretty much a wild card.... if I like the genre, I may enjoy it more than others. 5 is generally crap although maybe 1 or two I've enjoyed. Anything rated 4 and below on IMDb I don't even bother watching cause I've never seen anything rated 4.9 and below that was actually any good.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

It got a 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I'm a casual fan, granted I still like the overarching storyline. I know the basic story of T1 (the only one I haven't seen) and the rest of the story from the preceeding titles.

[Cognitive Gear]

I'm a casual fan, granted I still like the overarching storyline. I know the basic story of T1 (the only one I haven't seen) and the rest of the story from the preceeding titles.

I actually think that T1 has the best, most thought provoking story. Sadly, the effects really date the movie. (Stop Motion terminator)

[Scarecrow]

T1 is my personal favorite in the series too... It's pretty dated yes but for it's budget and all, it's quite amazing (I still love watching the Behind the Scenes thing showing how they did it all and it was really quite impressive... James Cameron is a creative genius!) It also had the best version of the terminator theme... (Something that was missing from T3 and I hear it's not in T4 either >.< Just having the drums does not count)

If there was one thing I think I would have left out it would be the stop-motion terminator sequence.... I wish they would have just used the puppet they used for close ups and stuff rather than trying to show the whole thing moving on it's own. Thankfully those two shots are extremely short.

[ShiroiHikari]

I actually think that T1 has the best, most thought provoking story. Sadly, the effects really date the movie. (Stop Motion terminator)

Maybe they should have just remade the first film instead of making this one. XD Nah, who am I kidding-- they would've screwed that up too.

[Souba]

[color="RoyalBlue"]I saw it today, and I really really loved it! I'm definitely going to see it again! Here I thought I'd love the Wolverine movie more than T4, but well that happens.

The story is good, and the action is great. The pacing was waay better than the novel version I read prior. Most of all I love that message that every life is important and worth protecting.
Beloved in Grace,
Souba [/color]

[Nate]

James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd posted a review and he said he really enjoyed it, though obviously it's not as good as the first two, or even the third. To be honest, I trust his opinion a whole lot more than most movie critics who seem to only be interested in movies catered to win academy awards.

[Shao Feng-Li]

33% even from Rotten Tomatoes. :\

[Radical Dreamer]

Unfortunate that it's getting mediocre reviews; the trailers make it look really, really awesome. XD If it's not worth seeing in theaters, I'll probably just wait for the DVD and not waste the 8 bucks. XD

[Mr. SmartyPants]

The only thing to do, Nate, is to see it for yourself. =)

[Azier the Swordsman]

James Rolfe, aka the Angry Video Game Nerd posted a review and he said he really enjoyed it, though obviously it's not as good as the first two, or even the third. To be honest, I trust his opinion a whole lot more than most movie critics who seem to only be interested in movies catered to win academy awards.

True dat. James Rolfe is the man.

[Rocketshipper]

I saw it, and enjoyed it a lot. It was way better than Terminator 3 for me.

[Kkun]

I really liked this movie for the most part. It was largely enjoyable with the exception of some cheesy dialogue. I think The Onion's B- was a dead-on rating. It isn't perfect, but it was pretty darn enjoyable as a summer action flick. Sam Worthington was great as Marcus Wright, and I always love Bryce Dallas Howard (I wish she'd had more screen time : (). I think the criticism of this film as "abysmal" is excessive.

I'm not exactly sure what everyone was expecting out of the new film in a series where Ahnold plays a killer robot sent back through time and later shoots up a squadron of police vehicles without killing anyone, but it worked beautifully as a nice way to kill a couple of hours on a summer afternoon. The scene of the motorcycle jumping into the Hunter-Killer was fine-- you have to have some ridiculous Hollywood sheen in a summer blockbuster. Otherwise, as far as its context goes, the action was great. Action films require the ability to suspend disbelief. I don't WANT them to be fully realistic (which is impossible in a movie about TIME TRAVELING and ROBOTS, by the way, so I think some motorcycle-jumping-into-a-Hunter-Killer is just dandy) because then they lose their purpose, which is little more than entertainment and escapism. This one didn't carry some of the weightier themes of T1 and 2, but it succeeded at being an enjoyable action flick.

It was no Star Trek, but then again, what can be? I think this movie's biggest barrier is that people hyped it up in their minds as IT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST MOVIE EVER just off of seeing the trailer and now they are let down and everyone wants another T2. Thus, I think Salvation is being judged more on expectation (and feeling let down) rather than how it actually is. I'm curious to see where they go with future sequels.

[Amzi Live]

I found it enjoyable. It might have not been what I expected,but yeah I agree with what Kkun said.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I think this movie's biggest barrier is that people hyped it up in their minds as IT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST MOVIE EVER just off of seeing the trailer and now they are let down and everyone wants another T2. Thus, I think Salvation is being judged more on expectation (and feeling let down) rather than how it actually is. I'm curious to see where they go with future sequels.

Perhaps, but this did not happen for me. I expected it to be mediocre, and it went even below that.

In terms of how it actually was, the dialogue was cheesy, the cliches were ridiculously stupid, and the film carried no sustenance. The action was pretty, but action alone does not carry a film.

It was a genuinely sucky film. A shame to the series and worse than T3.

[GrubbTheFragger]

I actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It was a fun watch. It might have been a cliched mess of a story but hey it was a action movie after all.

[Tommy]

I'm giving this one a fair chance whether it be on DVD or at the movies.

I usually end up liking movies everyone hates and vice versa. It's weird.

I'm constantly ragged on for not liking Transformers.