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Terminator Salvation




Terminator: Salvation (McG, 2009)

I have been waiting to see this movie for awhile for a couple of months now, and this past week has had me a little weary because I started seeing a bunch of negative reviews for it. Something I’ve learned, though, is to not listen to other people’s negative reviews, because I ended up being happy with this. Yeah, it wasn’t great or anything, but it’s still a good movie nonetheless. It was a big step up from Wolverine and just a little bit of a step down from Star Trek. I’ve never really been a big fan of the Terminator series actually, I really only liked Judgment Day. The first and third were alright, but I never really liked them all that much. I would probably say that this is my second favorite of the series, it’s definitely better than the first and third, but it doesn’t even come close to Judgment Day. This was such a great movie to see in theaters, though, because the action is extremely well done.

That’s actually the best thing about the movie; the action was very well done. Some of the action scenes looked fake due to the CGI, but even though it didn’t look, it still had something to do it that was visually appealing. It sure as hell looked miles better than Wolverine’s crappy effects, which is actually probably the worst use of CGI that I’ve ever seen. The plot wasn’t half bad either; it followed the Terminator series storyline pretty well. I heard a lot of people complaining about the plot, but it flowed just right, if you ask me. There wasn’t a moment where it got slow enough to bore me, but the entire movie didn’t focus just on the action scenes. The scenery is pure art, though, which may be reason why I thought the somewhat fake looking effects looked visually appealing. It’s what I’ve wanted to see in a Terminator movie since I ever saw the first one. I do wish they could’ve followed the original Terminator’s storyline some more, though, like using the dogs to detect the Terminators. Or Kyle Reese getting his barcode on his arm while he’s trapped at Skynet.

I have to agree with what I’ve been hearing about Connor’s character, though. I got really sick of him being so vain throughout the movie; at least he did get a little better towards the end. Whenever he came on screen, it was just me, me, me with him. It got a little annoying after awhile. I don’t know why they went that way his character either, because he wasn’t like that in Judgment Day or Rise Of The Machines. I also couldn’t help but to laugh whenever I heard him scream on screen, most people should probably know why. At least if you’ve heard his freak-out on the set you would. Sam Worthington was surprisingly pretty great in this, if you ask me. For an unknown actor to me, he really surprised me, because he was the best actor in the movie. I wish that Kate could’ve gotten some more screen-time, though, because she was one of the main things about Rise Of The Machines, and she was severely underplayed in this. Anton Yelchin did a pretty great job, though. I’ve always thought that he was a pretty underrated actor.

If you’re putting off watching this because of the negative reviews, I’d say that you should still give it a try. I think fans of the Terminator series will appreciate it. If you do see it, I’d strongly advise seeing it in theaters, because action movies are always meant to be seen in theaters. Something I’ve noticed is that 2009 has been a pretty crappy year for movies, at least compared to 2008. I sure hope that it’ll improve during the second half of the year. That’s usually when we get the better movies of the year, anyway. I’d probably say that this is my second favorite movie of the summer so far, but I hope that’ll change before the summers end.

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