Terminator Salvation is the franchise's most visually ambitious entry after T2 and its most hollow, a picture that takes the post-apocalyptic future that the earlier films had used as a backdrop and makes it the setting for a story of such limited emotional engagement that it makes the glimpsed future of the Cameron pictures feel richer and more fully realised than the one depicted here at length. McG's 2009 entry had the franchise's most interesting premise, the opportunity to tell a story set in the war against the machines that the earlier films had only shown in fragments, and it squanders that premise with a thoroughness that is almost remarkable. The future war, which the Cameron films made feel terrifying through selective glimpses, is rendered here in such exhaustive visual detail that it loses the quality of nightmare and becomes merely a setting.
At a Glance
Director: McG
Runtime: 115 minutes
Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter
Release: 2009
Critics Rating: ★★ (2/5 stars, a missed opportunity)
Audience Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, disappointing)
Review Breakdown
Plot
In 2018, John Connor is a mid-level resistance fighter whose prophesied leadership role has not yet been established. When Marcus Wright, a man who was executed in 2003 and who wakes up in the post-apocalyptic future with no memory of how he got there, arrives in the story, the two men must work together to rescue Kyle Reese from Skynet's central facility. The plot is the franchise's most structurally confused, attempting simultaneously to tell a story about John Connor's rise to leadership, a mystery about Marcus Wright's true nature, and a rescue mission involving Kyle Reese, without developing any of these threads with sufficient depth. The most significant structural failure is the treatment of John Connor as a secondary character in his own story, a man whose prophesied importance is asserted repeatedly but whose dramatic function is largely reactive. The film never resolves the tension between its two protagonists, and the result is a narrative that feels divided against itself.
Characters
Christian Bale's John Connor is the most significant casting disappointment, a performer of considerable range given a character of almost no psychological complexity. The John Connor of Salvation is a man of absolute certainty and determination whose dramatic function is to deliver exposition and look resolute, and Bale plays the role with a conviction the material does not deserve. Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright is the most interesting character, a man whose discovery of his own nature gives the picture its one moment of surprise, and Worthington plays the character's confusion and his eventual acceptance with a naturalism and a warmth that makes him the most purely engaging presence. Anton Yelchin's Kyle Reese is the most purely enjoyable creation, a young man of considerable resourcefulness whose scenes give the picture some of its most engaging passages and whose performance establishes the young Kyle Reese as a credible precursor to Michael Biehn's version of the character. Worthington is the greatest asset. Bale is wasted in a role that gives him almost nothing to do beyond deliver exposition and look determined. Yelchin is excellent.
Tone
McG pitches the picture as a post-apocalyptic war film, and the visual realisation of the future war is the most striking achievement. The production design is the franchise's most ambitious, creating a post-apocalyptic landscape of scale and specificity that the Cameron films could only gesture toward. But the tonal register is too consistently grim and too consistently generic to generate the emotional engagement that the more spectacular elements require, and the absence of the Cameron pictures' tonal range, from terror to warmth, is the most persistent limitation.
Meaning / Themes
The most interesting thematic concern is the question of what makes someone human, explored through Marcus Wright's discovery that he is a machine who believes himself to be a man. The suggestion that humanity is defined not by biology but by choice and by feeling is the most coherent thematic statement, and it is handled with enough conviction in Marcus's arc to feel like a dramatic concern rather than a plot mechanism. It is a theme the franchise has circled before, but Salvation is the only entry to place it at the centre of its story rather than its margins.
Direction
McG's direction is the most impressive element, with a command of scale and a visual ambition that gives the post-apocalyptic setting a grandeur and a specificity the franchise had not previously achieved. The action sequences are staged with a physical clarity that makes them the most technically accomplished in the franchise since T2. The Harvester sequence in particular demonstrates a genuine instinct for large-scale machine menace that the film's dramatic failures make all the more frustrating. Danny Elfman's score provides a serviceable sonic backdrop without the thematic distinctiveness of the franchise's strongest musical work.
Cultural Reception
Terminator Salvation received mixed reviews on its release and was a modest commercial success, grossing over $371 million worldwide against a production budget of approximately $200 million. Critics condemned the hollow characterisation of John Connor and the squandering of the future war premise while acknowledging the visual ambition and Worthington's performance. It is now regarded as the franchise's most significant missed opportunity, a picture that had everything it needed to be genuinely great and settled for adequacy instead.
Who Should Watch
Terminator fans will find it worth watching for the visual realisation of the future war and for Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright. Those who approach it expecting the emotional intelligence of the Cameron pictures will be disappointed.
Final Verdict: The franchise's most visually ambitious entry after T2 and its most hollow. Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright is the one achievement, but Christian Bale's John Connor is the franchise's most inert protagonist, and the picture squanders its most interesting premise with a thoroughness that is almost remarkable. Terminator Salvation had everything it needed to be genuinely great. It settled for adequacy instead.