"It was alright and I guess it could have been worse!"
Fine praise, indeed.
All seriousness aside, I went into this movie, avoiding all early reviews but influenced enough by the buzz to have very low expectations, and that helped me to enjoy the movie.
It's hard for me to say it was a good film, but it wasn't as bad as one could have imagined it. It was leaps and bounds above T3, but that's not saying very much, is it?
The film was full of a lot of bad cliches but did offer some fan service by trying to stay true to the kind of details geeks (like me) crave: the accurate scars on John Connor's face, the Ahnuld face on the T-800, the picture of Sarah Connor and the tapes she left for her son (thank you, Linda Hamilton!).
The bad? Hmm... there were a lot but a few standouts:
BLAIR is held in room because she helped MARCUS escape. The dialogue between BLAIR and CONNOR is best summed up as,
Connor: Why'd you do it?
Blair: 'cuz...
Connor: Ok, let her go.
Common (BARNES) - possibly the worst rapper turned actor. Ever. Granted, they didn't give him much to work with but it was pretty bad.
MARCUS - WAY too much yelling. We got it the first few times he was screaming and writhing in anguish while tied up or trying to escape. But, I thought Sam Worthington did a nice job with what he was given.
Bale/JOHN CONNOR - ok, his sign off after every announcement when communicating to the Resistance was a bit redundant and made it silly especially after asking them all to stand down.
The cheesy "I'll be back" fan service which did not work.
CONNOR lets MARCUS escape via the water but then yells, "WHAT ARE YOU?" which just seems dumb after he already let the guy go.
When he and BARNES go out to test the frequency that could neutralize Skynet-bots, they claim they need to keep it quiet, yet after the one HK goes down, they then blow up the whole thing with a loud shebang.
The futuristic iPod like room that regenerates MARCUS and SERENA's face comes up and explains the entire plot ala some bad retro Bond villain.
Skynet has KYLE REESE and JOHN CONNOR within their facility and yet does not immediately kill either one.
The desaturated and grainy look and some "action cam" shots that seemed to want to mimic "Saving Private Ryan." Dude, this isn't SPR and you are no Spielberg.
Need I go on?
And yeah, it's not fair to really bash any movie about time continuum bits when it involves time travel issues, and yet, they dropped the ball on some key fundamentals. Where was the supervisor who would oversee the continuity issues? Movies like this could really use a hand from some fanboy (or girl) who could at least point out where some issues lie. But I guess that is the difference between a movie maker who cares about the project (James Cameron) and one who only cares about himself (McG).
I'm not surprised it didn't open number 1 this weekend. The general buzz around my office cooler was that it did not seem very inspiring so they would be passing on going to see it this past weekend. I guess that was the truth.
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