Thursday, May 21, 2009

Terminator Salvation

At this point of the film John Connor (Bale) is questioning Marcus (Worthington) loudly about whether he thinks "is this professional?!" No I lied, but if you do want to see some of Christian Bale's best yelling feats, then check out this film.
Terminator Salvation revolves around the beginning before the first terminator film, involving Connor's learning his destiny to send back his father in time, and the invention of the T-800 serious Terminator (that's the type of terminator the Gov. plays). In all seriousness the plot is pretty simple if not for some sappy love stories dropped here and there but beyond that it follows a straight line.
McG had a big project to tackle here, I mean it's T-4, the script itself might as well have been self aware. I would like to see the behind-the-scenes of him and Bale interacting, because personally, I don't think he brought anything from Christian that we haven't seen before. However, Worthington attempts a star performance in this blogger's opinion. He comes out of the gates very strong with a good set of deep emotional undertones, he was feeling his character I believe, and doing a damn good job at keeping it. I did drop the "attempt" for reason though, when the going got tough, and the tough got to yelling, the Mick Dundee in this Aussie came out. Let's not hold this against him though, he may lose it every now and then, and yes Bale is good at dropping his Scottish accent no matter the vocal range, but the dude could still act his way out of a box, so lets get a golf clap. As for the other major players, Moon Bloodgood as Blair, gives an enticing performance, which counter acts Helena Carter as Dr. Kogan. I would think as Connors mother-to-be she would be a little more emotionally involved, but alas it is not, and Carter is not making me believe she is actually Kogan in the film.
I need a whole other paragraph for Common as Barnes, because here comes the dilemma. Is it the writer, actor, or director's fault in this situation. I couldn't tell if it was just bad lines "don't worry he will make it." or if it was bad acting "beautiful." or just bad directing "Blair said you needed to see me." Even simple one liners from this guy hurt. I am going to have to go with part writer and part Common, bad lines+bad delivery=UnCommonly bad screen-time (uncommonly was inspired by a John Tussey Dubosky convo. I had previously today).
As for Sharie Hurlbut as the DP. The cinematography was pretty simple and nothing really jumped out at me so I will give her a strong handshake and say, good job. The CGI and Effects teams though, KUDOS! They pushed their boundaries this time on a series of films that has been known to push the Special FX and Digital FX boundaries since T-1000 and beads of mercury on a table with hair driers. The machines somewhat resembled those from Transformers, which is perfectly fine, and I think they did a great job with their creation and execution.
Soundtrack didn't really jump off the screen this time, except for the use of a classic 90's alternative rock song used at one part, that was an nice move. The Sound FX were awesome I just have to say, everything fit perfectly. I think it's really hard to make something that doesn't exist sound authentic, and they pulled it off completely.
So it's time to get off of here before my mac book becomes self-aware and starts shooting at me. Would I go see this film in the theaters your probably wondering, yes. The sound and CGI are great and it is a very intense story line, so it was definitely enjoyable. Would I see it again, probably not unless it was free, nothing beats the old Terminator and T-2, but its worth its weight in liquid metal. Oh and look for some throw back lines in the film, they are masked a little by off note acting, but they peak their heads out.
Banan-a-meter: 6.6/10 Bananas

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