I should've seen Star Trek again...Anyway, sorry to the folks who wrote asking where my review was... It's been a busy weekend preparing for my trip to Seattle. Speaking of which, we're less than 15 hours from departure! WOOT!
Back to the movie here, I was disappointed. Part of why I didn't write a review the second I got home was the fact that I really had to sort out that movie in my head. On one hand, I didn't like it. On the other... it had potential.
My gripes were many. First and foremost, I was decidedly disappointed by Christian Bale as John Connor. The character was about as one dimensional as you can get without him disappearing when he turns sideways. He could have been a random guy wearing a paper bag and I couldn't have cared less about him. Whoever it was who played his wife made me want to go into epileptic fits of violence every time she was on screen. Talk about cheesy acting...
McG should have taken a look at Star Trek when it comes to doing throwbacks to older movies in the franchise. Where Star Trek had tasteful inside jokes and references to the previous franchise, Terminator had heavy-handed and ultimately absurd throwbacks, and it heavily detracted from the movie. When Connor uttered "I'll be back" the audience literally groaned. In fact, the entire climactic battle might as well have been ripped out of the previous entries, as it resembled all, but seemed to cheat most off of Terminator 2.
Heck, even the score was forgettable.
Moving on to the one thing that really intrigued me about the movie, Marcus Wright. I've never heard of the Sam Worthington guy who played this role, but I would certainly like to see more of him in the future. The one nice thing about this movie was watching his character evolve (truly, his is the only one that does). Worthington nailed the role and the emotional depth it required. He is the robot who has no idea he's a robot, and the events he is put through and is a part of as his story unfolds was a reason I'm glad to have shelled out cash for this otherwise terrible movie. Aside from having the only interesting part in the whole story, Worthington out-acted Christian Bale. Enough said.
This actually brings me to the part of the film I hated most. And when I say hate, I mean hate, as in, the most literal definition you can think of. The trailer. This is a classic example of a trailer that gave away far too much. I cannot stress that enough.
Here's my argument. The story obviously hinged on the audience's emotional connection with Marcus Wright. Pretty much all the other characters fade into the background whenever he's on screen due in large part to the acting, but the story was very plainly written to be about him and his interactions with John Connor. See, the thing is, they had so much potential to draw us, as the audience, into this movie by moving us with Wright's plight (poetry!!). But, what should ahve been the most jaw-dropping part of the movie was instead another ho-hum moment courtesey of the fact that the trailer gave away the surprice, it deadened that experience. Had we been allowed to discover Marcus' cyborgness right along with him, had we experienced that surprise and shock at the same time he did, it would have made this movie good. It would have allowed us to sympathize enough with the character that the rest of the movie's foibles would have been more forgiveable. As it stands, the trailer truly killed this movie for me - whoever thought giving this part of the movie away was a good idea should be taken out behind the shed and smacked upside the face with a shovel.
Marcus Wright aside, the only other tolerable thing about the movie was Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. Yelchin brings such energy to the screen. He's great. Though I must admit to waiting for "I can do this! I can do this!" and a thick Russian accent. :-)
Anyway, it's difficult to score this movie. Like I mentioned earlier, on one hand you have the sweetness that is Marcus Wright as played by Sam Worthington. It was entertaining and fascinating, and it made up a good chunk of the movie. On the other hand was... everything else. For everything that Worthington did right, the movie had two or three things it did wrong. I had heard going into the movie that it was the worst movie of the summer (I was skptical that it could be worse than Wolverine), so my expectations going in were low. Coming out, it had surpassed my expectations - no, it was not worse than Wolverine, but it came damn close. Had Worthington not been in the movie, this would easily get a 1, perhaps even less, but his performance really elevated the movie from downright garbage into something more appreciable. So, out of respect to him and the great character he portrayed so well, I'll give it a better-than-it-would-have-been 3.5/10.0.
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