They'll be back, again and again. (Terminator Salvation (DVD))

Member Name: LaptopAcidX

Product:	Terminator Salvation (DVD)
Date:	14/06/09 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Atmospheric and immersive, excellent effects and action, human story.

Disadvantages: Lack of gory deaths.

The fourth film (cash in) in the Terminator Franchise is a mega budget summer blockbuster. The plot, well it's the same as the other three, robots try to wipeout humanity, humanity fights back, the twist this time is the humans are helped by a human/terminator hybrid, people fire guns, things blow up that's pretty much it, except the story at the centre of the film is quite human.

I had very low expectations for two reasons the first being the 12 certificate, I remember being shocked and excited by the violence in the first film as a teenager, and the second one followed suit. Although Terminator 3 was somewhat toned down there is a fair amount of cyborg carnage and the violence is inherent to the threat the robots pose so how could a 12 certificate film maintain the threat. The second reason for low expectations was the director McG who had previously done the atrocious Charlies Angels films, a few pop videos and some TV work.

The film very cleverly sidesteps the gory violence by simply not having any, there aren't even sequences where it's implied or off screen as with many 12 certificate sci-fi horrors. Plenty of people die when things blow I up, but because of clever writing it's more like Star Wars than the earlier films. Despite this the film still maintains tension through the threat of the machines as a result of some genuinely jumpy moments early on so probably not one for younger kids.

Despite the low certificate Terminator: Salvation is gritty (like the first film) and the post apocalyptic world is "beautifully" realised with excellent cinematography and CGI that is absolutely seamless. Visceral action sequences make further brilliant use of CGI and also animatronics, it's very well written and paced and performances are good with Sam Worthington as the confused hybrid the stand out. Overall an excellent summer blockbuster yet not a soulless CGI fest like Transformers and certainly better than the deeply flawed Star Trek. Undoubtedly there will be at least two further films and I hope they're as good as this one.

Summary: A pretty impressive film.