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Christian Bale plays John Connor in the Latest instalment of the Terminator series |
It’s Salvation barmy to make yet another
Terminator
TERMINATOR SALVATION
Directed by McG
Certificate 15
THE Terminator series has legs. This is the fourth and brings us the latest update on John Connor, the man whose destiny is to save the world from intelligent computers bent on our destruction.
It is 2018 and a cranking metallic army of huge robots scours the landscape, hunting down the remnants of the human race. People are hiding like cockroaches in burned-out buildings while disparate groups take the fight to the baddie computer called Skynet.
Meanwhile, a stranger awakens from a coma – confused as to who or where he is. He finds survivors hiding out in an apocalyptic Los Angeles and is taken to a resistance base. But is he the key to beating the enemy – or does his mysterious arrival spell doom?
This tale is told through a film that is ridiculously well polished. The post-nuclear badlands look incredible. There is a hazy wash across the screen. The sky is a slightly different colour (there is no ozone left) and there is a pallor about the faces of the survivors.
The ships, robots, motorbikes, explosions, punch-ups, shootouts, gore and cyborgs are testimony to the geniuses working in special effects today. One scene has our hero wrestling with metallic swimming eels. It is superb, like watching Johnny Weissmuller do his Tarzan and the crocs skit.
It is incredible to think James Cameron’s first Terminator film came out as long ago as 1984. Salvation pays tribute to it – Connor (Christian Bale) mutters the immortal Arnie line, “I’ll Be Back”, and at one point an Arnie robot appears, intent on doing some damage to our hero.
But other links with Terminator One, Two and Three are not intended – much of this film involves men being pursued by seemingly indestructible robots. It got tiresome by Terminator Three, which was not much more than a permanent playground-style game of You’re It. Terminator One had an air of horror about it. Here was this unflinching machine from the future intent on killing you, and no one believing you when you try to tell them what’s going on. Sadly, this instalment lacks any of that psycho-scary class. It is a straightforward thrill ride made a little more interesting with a plot twist that extends its shelf life for an extra half hour.
There are often problems with these back-to-the-future-type films where the science of hopping to and fro through time gets a little confusing.
I stopped concentrating on why Connor has to save Kyle Reese. Kyle is, I think, supposed to be his dad (but seems much younger than him).
The complicated relationship between them was probably made clear while my attentions were being distracted by yet another gargantuan crash and bang.
And while Sarah Connor of the previous instalments was a kick-ass hero, in this outing the female lead (the superbly named actress Moon Goodblood) simply pouts and looks far too manicured for someone living in the midst of a nuclear winter.
The Terminator story was a brilliant piece of science fiction with a whiff of HG Wells about it. Cameron reminded us that humans are part of a natural world, not the masters of it. Now the films have become glossy shoot-em-ups and the message that we might be spending a little too long on developing weapons to wipe ourselves out instead of ways to make the world a happier place has been lost along the way. |
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