Best Mood to Walk In With: Ready to be visually stimulated
Don't See This Movie If: You want good dialogue, good acting, or comedy, or if you have high expectations for anything outside of the special effects
First off I need to thank my friend Eric for being awesome and working at a movie theater. He is the reason I sometimes get to see movies ahead of general audiences, and he has definitely won favorite person status for this and several other reasons. Since he and I tend to have very different perspectives concerning movies, I'm hoping he will write another review for this film since he really disliked it for interesting reasons.
I, however, really enjoyed Terminator Salvation and appreciated it for the type of movie it is. The story wasn't so hot, the robots tended to get less intelligent as the movie progressed, the dialogue was straight up awful, but none of this mattered to me and probably won't matter to most of America, because that's not why we really go see action movies during the summer. I anticipate Terminator killing the box offices this weekend, because I don't know if I can think of another movie with such high quality, continuous special effects. I was happy to sip my Diet Coke and ignore the banal conversation in the movie, because in my mind it was just filler 'til the next explosion. And the explosions were awesome!
It must be noted, though, that I have no emotional attachment to the Terminator franchise. If the next Harry Potter movie, however, was all glitz and no substance, I would be incredibly frustrated. So keep in mind that I am able to be excited about this movie because I have no personal investment in the characters. Those who haven't seen any other Terminator movies will be fine due to a concise yet very adequate synopsis at the beginning of the movie. However, this brainless narration tends to continue throughout the film, as if the screenwriter assumed everyone in the audience is too stupid to keep up.
Also, I found it hard to care about the characters. Christian Bale did his normal monotone acting of sometimes yelling without feeling and other times looking broodingly conflicted. It is easy to believe he went crazy at a lighting guy on this movie set, because he basically does the same thing as John Connor. The character of Marcus was much more interesting, and Sam Worthington was really fun to watch in this role until the end where his storyline faded into banality. Also, I was surprised to see Helena Bonham Carter make an appearance in the movie and was equally startled by her flatline performance, since normally she brings a lot of depth to her characters. Moon Bloodgood as Blair kicked ass, but disappointingly disappeared from the plot about halfway in. The true star performer in this flick is Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese. While the other actors tended to be one dimensional, Yelchin broadened his range while also being the only character who made me laugh with humor and not ridicule. (If he looks familiar to you, he is also the brainchild from Star Trek.)
Keep Your Eyes Closed For: The needless and bad Arnold impersonator at the end
Keep Your Eyes Open For: The very clever way Terminator's tagline "I'll be back." got worked into the script
Overall, if you go into this movie with expectations of only special effects, you will be satisfied. If you buy your ticket looking for a consistent plot or awesome lines, you may feel cheated out of your $10. In that case, go see Night At the Museum.
Movies are Life. ~ K
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