"The Devil's hands have been busy"-Terminator: Salvation (2009) Review

Terminator: Salvation Review

Director: McG

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Codestar30 Rating: 8/10

In 2003, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a criminal on death row, is convinced to donate his body to scientific research. He wakes up 15 years later in 2018 with amnesia, in a post-apocalypse world. The first person he meets turns out to be a Terminator, 1 of a deadly race of killer robots invented to seek and destroy the survivors of the nuclear holocaust. He is saved by a young man and a small girl, Kyle Reece (Anton Yelchin) and Star (Jadagrace). Together they try to out run the terminators and find 'The Resistance', the organised left over humans devoted to destroying the Terminators and winning the war against the Machines. Meanwhile, John Connor (Christian Bale), the prophesied leader of 'The Resistance', and the rest of his rag-tag army believe they have found a way to end the war, and are preparing their final strike against the machines.

First of all, whilst this movie can be enjoyed on its own, I would strongly recommend viewing the 1st 3 terminator movies before you watch it. Otherwise you will end up confused and lost. 

The acting is overall good in this movie. Sam Worthington puts in an excellent performance. Christian Bale puts on his raspy Batman voice, and gives a reasonable performance. The rest of the cast do their jobs as the scared yet courageous resistance.

There's plenty of action. Car, motor bike and Jet chases, gun battles, fist fights, explosions and crashes. No lacking of excitement. This Terminator is more of a war movie, as apposed to the cat-and-mouse chase format of the previous 3, so as apposed to a few humans trying to kill one almighty Terminator, its lots of humans trying to kill lots of terminators. So if you like action in your movies this movie won't disappoint. 

The plot's good. It hard to describe it without ruining a few surprises, but the story is very good. John Connor's part in this movie isn't the best part (Partly due to the mediocre acting of Christian Bale), but Marcus is an excellent character and his journey of redemption, and his transition from criminal to hero is very unique (despite that many films have a similar character redemption journey, Terminator: Salvation puts a new spin of redemption and second chances.)

Any fan of the Terminator franchise should love this movie. Its a step in a new direction for the series and gives new life to it, whilst still keeping the underlying themes and overall story. However, it should appeal to more than just hard-core Terminator fans and I would recommend it to any action lover, even those who have not followed the story so far. I hope they make a sequel!