Terminator Salvation

Why isn't "Terminator: Salvation" the accepted rendering of this film's title? I don't really get that. Anyway, despite a number of factors working against it, I found this movie to be reasonably watchable rather than completely terrible. I understand that that's not exactly high praise, though for something by McG it kind of is. Despite its plot making the absolute minimum of logical sense, and the fact that it completely ignores much of what we learned from the other movies, and that the very idea of a PG-13 Terminator movie seems abhorrent, I did manage to wring some enjoyment out of its one hundred and ten minutes. Yeah, the story has holes, but they're just more obvious when you compare them to some of the impossible scenarios in the other movies. Yeah, it conveniently forgets some things we knew about the machines and the war in the future, but the series stopped following its own rules long ago. I don't want to sound like I'm praising it too much, because it's not very good at all, but I didn't hate it.

I mean, let's be real. It's weird how these Terminators seem immune to molten steel yet vulnerable to bullets, but the series is so inconsistent about what can and can't kill these machines and what they're made out of that it hardly matters at this point. The fact that all those sweet laser weapons are missing is disconcerting, but it sort of wouldn't match the aesthetic they were going for if they were there, and it is after all ten years before the flashbacks from the first two movies. Maybe they just haven't been invented yet. I found it easiest to get some fun out of the movie when I was just watching it as an apocalyptic, very loud action film, and ignoring its blasphemies against the more beloved entries in the series. I actually thought McG did some good stuff here and there. Visually, it really captures the future war thing in places, with some extended takes that really pushed the desperate nature of the fighting. Of course, the performances he got from some of the cast are another story.

There's quite a few recognizable faces in this movie, and not many do much to distinguish themselves. Christian Bale, ostensibly but not really the main character, is decent as usual, though you can make a case he wasn't really trying terribly hard here. I appreciate that Sam Worthington has the look and physique of a more old school action hero, but in two big roles he hasn't really done that much. Someone should just give him a part he can freely use his Aussie accent in. Michael Ironside gets to push himself not very hard at all in a typical hardass authority role, which is always fun, and Helena Bonham Carter is creepy enough in a multifaceted part. I liked Anton Yelchin as Chekov in Star Trek (even more than Walter Koenig, honestly), but he can't save a poorly written, teenage version of Kyle Reese from damaging the character's legacy a bit. There's a few other notable people here and there, but not much to say about them.

And there's really not much to say about the rest of the film. There's some decent action and effects for the first two thirds, and then it sort of comes off the rails in the final act as the plot gets less and less believable. Really, the most offensive part of the whole project is how it plays around with what's already been established by superior works, but for whatever reason I found that relatively easy to ignore. Certainly watchable, but just as easily avoided.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 2

As with the first, I had some ambivalent feelings about this show's second and likely final season. On one hand, too many of the episodes failed to really hold my interest for anywhere close to their entire running time, and it still stumbles a little too often with dumb logical leaps and story inconsistencies. On the other, it did some things that I really respect, and had at least a handful of really great moments and unique story structures that kept me from ever dropping it. It never reaches the level of greatness that other shows have, but I liked it enough that at least part of me is sorry they'll probably not get a chance to explore their newest time travel retcon loophole in the finale, even if it lessened the impact of other scenes. Plus it's hard to hate something that featured the most accurate representation of tabletop roleplaying I've seen on TV.

The second season introduces a lot of new elements to the series, changing it from a few characters just trying over and over to stop Skynet to more open cast with a variety of conflicting goals. The problem is that most of the people aren't terribly interesting, all of them talking more or less like the same person whether they be soulless machines, veterans of a taxing future war, or just FBI agents who have seen a lot of messed up crap. There's a sort of detachedness to all of the dialogue that makes listening to people argue over whatever less engaging than it should be, and overall stuff just doesn't blow up as often as it should. One particular episode at a funeral practically had me asleep waiting for something to happen. Not that it was always like that, some things like an episode about a terminator sent to the 1920s by accident ended up being pretty fun, and there were quite a few times where music was used very effectively to set a mood for a dramatic moment. I also liked how the deaths were sudden and unceremonious, with no teary farewell speeches. If the show really is over, then it gets the same sort of end, without a chance for true closure. I'm not too torn up about it, and I'm not sure if I'd recommend the series or not, but I don't feel like I wasted my time.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Season 1

I would have preferred to see the Terminator franchise end after the second movie, because it wrapped everything up perfectly, but if they insist on bringing me more entertainment featuring killer robots from the future, I don't have much of a problem watching it. The third movie's plot should be ignored, but it was still an entertaining action movie, and the new show, which just started its second season, is pretty much the same way. It takes place in an alternate reality from the third movie in the current day. For the most part, it sticks with and adds to the universe, but it doesn't obey all the rules as much as it should. The main reason the robots have human flesh, besides blending in, is that only organic matter can pass through the time travel thing, which is why everybody shows up naked (ha ha, naked). The show acknowledges this, but then allows the exploded exoskeleton of a Terminator that's been pursuing the protagonists pass through and then reform itself later. This simply shouldn't have happened, and it's not like there's a shortage of other machines trying to kill the good guys. I also don't like it when shows or movies that involve time travel both feature the characters trying to change the future and doing something to make sure the future goes the way they remember it. I'm sure the movies did it too, but it sticks out here. "Hey, there's no wall here in the future! Probably because we blow it up right now!" "But what about the fact that stopping Skynet from forming now would prevent us from going back to the past to do it?" "Shut up, I'm blowing the wall! Yeah!"

Logical conundrums aside, it's a pretty entertaining show. It stars the queen from 300 as Sarah, the healing girl's lame friend from Heroes as John, and that weird chick from Firefly as Cameron, the new friendly Terminator. Her characterization is a bit weird, because at first she seems very natural and friendly to John, but as soon as they reveal she's a robot, she starts acting like all the others. She has moments of more human-like mannerisms, but they haven't done a lot with that yet. I don't understand the logic behind making a Terminator that's small and flexible when all the others are big, burly men, but she can usually hold her own in a one on one fight. So far, it's pretty much what you'd expect from a Terminator show. Fairly interesting science fiction storylines, decent horror elements, good action. The series has to have a huge budget for blowing stuff up. It's not as big as the movies, but it's pretty destructive. The cast does a decent job too, although no one plays an emotionless killer robot like Arnold. Like most programs that attempt it, it frequently falls on its face when getting technical ("My chess robot has the guts of three X-Boxes and four Playstations daisy-chained together!"), but at least they're trying. The season definitely got better as it went on, and the new episode on Monday promised more cool things to come.