'Salvation' saves franchise

He said he’d be back, and he wasn’t lying. “Terminator: Salvation” is an exploding roller coaster of action, with a strong and emotional story to keep it grounded and out of the realm of the “popcorn flick.”

Eighteen years after “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” the deadly robots set on destroying humanity return. This time we are treated to a view of the post-apocalyptic future they hail from.

It revolves around two main characters: John Connor (Christian Bale) and Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). Having survived the time-traveling Terminator’s attempts to kill him before he could grow up, Connor is now the tough-as-nails leader of the human resistance, trying to bring down the machine army. Wright is a death row inmate who was executed only to be reborn as a robot with a human heart and brain. Now he must cope with the fact that while his body is a machine, he still thinks and feels like a human.

This movie (which never refers to itself as Terminator 4, to avoid reminding audiences that there ever was a third film) almost measures up to the high bar set by James Cameron’s previous masterpiece, “T2.” The acting is great and manages to sell some concepts that could come off as cheesy or overplayed in the hands of less capable thespians.

Worthington’s performance manages to stave off any comparison to “Battlestar Galactica,” which explores very similar themes of questioning humanity.
The real selling point of this film is the special effects. Instead of cramming CG imagery into every shot, director McG instead opts for plenty of practical effects as well, with good old-fashioned animatronic killer robots in abundance and real-life explosions galore.

The half-robot half-human facial effects are the best I’ve seen since Two-Face in “The Dark Knight.” They even managed to put Arnold Schwarzenegger circa 1991 into the picture, and I’m still not sure how.

With a depth and gravitas that sets it apart from lighter films like “Transformers,” McG’s “Terminator: Salvation” manages to blend exploding robot motorcycles with resonant human drama, almost as well as his predecessors’ in the series. I walked out of the theater excited to see where this franchise goes, and more than willing to watch it again.