Hey, you know what won't be back? An entire franchise, after Terminator Salvation gets done with it. What was once a fun, exciting, involving series of pop adventures has been turned into a grim, desaturated slog by director McG. Coming on the heels of Star Trek's giddy escapism, it's hard to see how this risible war film will provide moviegoers -- or Warner Bros. -- with any jolts whatsoever.
Salvation is the first film in the series to pick up after the much teased-at Judgment Day has wiped away almost all of the world's population. John Connor (Christian Bale, needing a lozenge) is the prophesized leader of the resistance, but his influence is limited to inspirational radio messages broadcast to other, scattered freedom fighters. The real battle against the machines of Skynet is being commanded by a whole bunch of ineffectual military dudes on a submarine, and the low-level Connor often bristles at how his salary hasn't quite caught up with his destiny yet. Sadly, Connor is hamstrung by more than just his lowly station: he is also boring, he has no sense of humor, and he is played by a shouting, angry Bale in a performance that seems like it's parodying both his Batman growl and his infamous, surreptitiously recorded rant at Salvation's cinematographer.
In the original T4 draft, Connor was a minor presence; only when Bale sparked to playing him was the role rewritten, and the script's hasty seams show. Salvation's real protagonist is Marcus Wright (Aussie actor Sam Worthington), a death row inmate who's shocked to find himself alive and in a post-apocalyptic wasteland when the last thing he can remember is his lethal injection. Perhaps he hasn't seen his own movie's ad campaign, which reveals him to be an unknowing Terminator hybrid (the movie, bless its heart, reveals this information nearly halfway through, as though it wasn't destined to be spoiled already on the side of a 7-11 cup).
Wright's given the closest thing resembling an arc: though he'd been ready to die, he finds new reason to live when he stumbles upon future Connor papa Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and decides to rescue the boy after he's abducted by Skynet. Maybe he feels he can redeem himself for the crime that landed him on death row, a murder that's so conspicuously unexplained that it feels a bit like a loaded gun going off not in the third act, but in the special Blu-Ray edition's deleted scenes.
So, surely Connor (who knows a thing or two about human-looking robots) and Wright will cross paths and strike up an uneasy partnership, right? Not so much; the dynamic that's informed every Terminator movie is barely at play here, and after Connor and Wright finally meet, they share little screen time together and almost immediately set off on different journeys. Terminator isn't a franchise about people doing shit by themselves, guys -- it's about a lonely human and a protector hiding out from a killer robot while forging a relationship.
It's also about star power, and sadly, Salvation doesn't have it. Worthington is one of Hollywood's new big hopes (his big break is still yet to come: Avatar, directed by original Terminator helmer James Cameron), and while he's serviceable as Wright, his generic features and underwritten role lack the pop juice of Terminators past. McG first went after Josh Brolin for the role; it's too bad it didn't work out, because Brolin's got the spark this movie so desperately needs. About all Worthington has in common with Arnold Schwarzenegger is a similar lack of facility with an American accent.
Does anything work? Sure: Yelchin, unlike many in the cast, appears to be playing a real person, and some of the elongated takes (particularly during a stunning helicopter crash sequence) are well-stitched together. Ultimately, though, it's tough to give a shit. The writing (by T3 scribes John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris, with an uncredited assist by Jonah Nolan) is utterly pedestrian, providing no new money quotes but liberally ransacking the first two films for dialogue that's swiftly unpacked of its resonance. Connor and his freedom fighters are dully envisioned; one might expect the resistance to live off the grid, communicating by slips of paper spirited over great distances. Nope: they send super-elaborate computer signals to each other constantly. You'd think that the technologically advanced robots of Skynet might pick up on those from time to time.
The film's only real pleasure comes when Schwarzenegger is resurrected for a fight sequence filled with digital trickery (and Austin Powers-like obscuring of his naughty robot bits -- he's nude, folks). Still the Terminator fan in me thinks there was a better way Schwarzenegger could have been utilized: a T2-like epilogue where, as Schwarzenegger is lowered into that vat of molten goo, he gives the entire enterprise a decided thumbs-down. RATING (out of 10): 3