Terminator Salvation

When I saw the trailers of Terminator Salvation I was amazed at the action sequences and the CGI displayed. I thought this might be a superb action film and hopefully will be much better than Terminator 3. The movie delivered exactly as was promised in the trailers - a thorough action film without much of a story. Let me first give a short synopsis of the movie.

The movie is set in 2018 showing a full-fledged war between man and the machines (does that sound familiar?). John Connor (Christian Bale) has grown up and is one of the main leaders of the resistance against the machines. Skynet (the evil computer) has perfected the A.I. and is trying to do everything to stop the humans (seems like the humans are trying to take over the machines and not the other way round!). The efforts of Skynet include destruction of property and life as well as taking human prisoners (God knows what they are going to do with them). John Connor's (JC from now) primary mission in the movie is to find his teenage father, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) and save him from the machines so that he can be sent back in time to impregnate Sarah Connor (JC's mom) which will help in JC's conception.

Another subplot involves Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) who was a death-row convict and had donated his body for scientific research in 2003. He comes back to life and is essentially a machine in man's body. He helps JC break into Skynet's facility to rescue Kyle who has been captured.

The movie is so action packed that at some point one starts thinking as to what is the point of all this. Don't get me wrong. It is thoroughly enjoyable as long as you don't care about the story. However, one must not forget that this is a franchise and a new movie is expected to add something to the storyline. This movie fails to do that. To quote Roger Ebert, one of the most reknowned film critics, this is "a movie that raises many questions about the lines between man and machine. Raises them, and then leaves them levitating." The quintessential question that I wanted answered was "why is John Connor so important? Why would Skynet go to any extent to prevent his conception first and later on plot his death?" Alas, the movie doesn't add any information to answer this question. In fact at some point the viewer feels as if this movie is more about Marcus Wright than about John Connor!

I am a big fan of Christian Bale and his movies. However, I was disappointed by his performance in this movie. May be, it wasn't his fault. A look at the characters around him returns the same disappointment except for Sam Worthington. All in all, if you are a hard core Terminator fan or an action movie lover, you can go and see it but even if you don't, you haven't missed much!