Terminator Salvation - The RedHotPie review

When a film’s directed by some clown calling himself McG, the trepidation sets in early. Is McG short for something? Is it in fact an acronym? Multiple Cliché Guy springs to mind; or how about Massive Cinematic Gaffe? Whatever the reason for his ridiculous moniker, once the world bears witness to Terminator Salvation, McG will spell mud.

The first 10 minutes of TS are an exercise in amateurish exposition, forced emotion and over-played drama. While Australian talent, Sam Worthington, settles quickly into his role, tantrum king Christian Bale bellows his way out of the audience’s good graces almost immediately. Bale might thrill viewers when hacking up Wall Street execs and prostitutes, but put the man on the big screen with a bunch of machines and the jig’s up.

And let’s talk about those machines shall we. The film’s mechanical nightmares, which were supposed to deliver the high-octane action, are lifted directly from the previous Terminator films, the Matrix films and the Transformers film. The design team have blown whatever research funding they had on ideas they could have found at Blockbuster for about six bucks.

Even the film grading is boring. Everything is washed out with a faux sepia haze which was no doubt meant to amplify the whole dying human race metaphor, but unfortunately just hobbles the aesthetic and makes a drab film that much drabber.

But ultimately we’re picking at the exterior when really the rot has set in at the core. The script is an embarrassing hodgepodge of cliché, franchise reference and under-developed characters. The ‘cringe factor’ becomes almost unbearable when Bale utters a classic Terminator catchphrase without so much as a hint of irony… and from there all is lost.

There is one fleeting moment of brilliance toward the end of the film when Bale is attacked by an unexpected face. The joy is however short-lived, and the story plays out in obvious, uninspired fashion.

There was so much potential in this project, which could have been a new chapter in a classic struggle… however, unlike JJ Abrams’ newest chapter addition to the Star Trek book of lore, McG has drawn a blank - rehashing tired formulas and crippling the Terminator reboot before it even got off the ground.

Don’t believe the hype, friends… TS is BS.