Monday, July 20, 2009

Movie: Terminator Salvation

I never got the whole Christian Bale hype. I don't get his Batvoice (that he uses in all his other movies, apparently), especially since from what I've seen in interviews, his voice is completely normal. Why he wants to sound like a chronic smoker is beyond me.

As far as Terminator goes, I've never seen T3. Apparently I haven't missed much. I did, however, watch and enjoy the first two several times as a kid (and I might have had a slight crush on Furlong!John Connor. What? I was like ten. Shut up.), so when a friend suggested we go see T4 this past weekend, I said sure. The only thing I knew about the movie before seeing it was the fact that Helena Bonham Carter was in it. Somehow, I thought she'd be a robot. Don't ask.

Salvation is... okay, I guess. I thought there was a bit too much action *dodges flying tomatoes* and well, John Connor seemed kinda useless. I just didn't care for him. At all. And why is he so important again? I mean, in Salvation, he's not the leader of the resistance. Apparently, people just think he's special because uh, someone from the future and Sarah Connor said so? And people are buying that? No wonder we're going extinct.

Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese was a nice surprise. I love that kid and I was really looking forward to seeing Kyle in his own world. Except they stuffed him in a cage halfway through the movie and that was it. Star, as unnecessary as she was, was insanely cute.

You ask me, the real star of the movie was Marcus Wright. I don't remember seeing Sam Worthington in anything before, but he made an impression. That was a character they could actually do stuff with. So naturally, he had to die.

The ending of the movie just felt like a giant cop-out to me. Reading more about TS, it's clear why. When the Arnold!Terminator (nice touch) stabbed Connor, I was actually shocked. I thought it was kind of an awesome twist. Especially since, as I said, Connor was kind of useless in the whole thing anyway. But no. They had to go and kill the one with potential.

The internet tells me the original idea for Salvation had Marcus Wright and Kyle Reese as the lead characters. Connor only appeared in the last few minutes of the script. I could live with that. Actually, I would have probably liked that a lot more because those two I actually cared about. But then Bale decided he wanted to play Connor and, well, this happened. A lot of useless, pasted-on John Connor scenes and a lot less Yelchin and Worthington. Screw you and your Batvoice, Christian Bale.