Boom Boom Bang Bang. Destruction. Fire, metal, blood, gore, contraptions, noise. And somewhere, faint references to a beating heart and how humans are different from machines. Making a multi-million dollar movie that ends up like 'Terminator Salvation' is like making a product whose customer wonders why it was made. Sure, its good popcorn fare. But, I'll pass.
'Terminator Salvation' is the sequel to the famed 'Terminator' movies with the spotlight shifting now to the protected hero John Connor, the savior of the human race. It is the year 2018 and the machines are planning to eliminate the man who had been sent into the past to father John Connor. The machines have also created an infiltrator prototype that is a human body with machine-like features infused into it. The infiltrator manages to escape the research lab, but feels more human than machine. He must find who has done this to him. And Connor must find his father, before the machines get to him. Both their objectives take them to Skynet, the HQ of the machines. Will they be able to meet their objectives is what the movie tries to answer.
The special effects are eye catching but they ultimately are tools to tell a good tale and cannot be the soul of a film. Unfortunately, this movie while trying to use the beating human heart as a symbol of human superiority over an intelligent machine, does not demonstrate that it has one. The earlier 'Terminator' movies explored the human condition and how the human race itself was heading towards self destruction. But, in this film, apart from references to the fact that 'the machines are the enemy', you do not get that feeling at all.
None of the acting performances are noteworthy, simply because apart from either looking serious or scared, there is nothing much to do. The saving grace was a glimspe of a computer generated Arnie that made the disappointment of Christian Bale's weak "I'll be back" bearable.
'Terminator Salvation' is unfortunately too regular a fare that does disservice to its predecessors, especially the first two movies. It even has the utterly predictable hints at the end that made you expect 'I STILL know what you did last summer' following 'I know what you did last summer'. If you are an action fan and want some 70mm thrills, try it out, but I wouldn’t push it.
