I really enjoyed this movie, but at the same time I left the theater just a little disappointed. Because they were so close. They really hit on a solid storyline, kept the characters believable, maintained the continuity of the story... they even basically tied up the loose ends from the previous movies.
Here's the problem: they tried too hard. There were a lot of nostalgia moments-- "come with me if you want to live," "I'll be back," etc... which I kind of enjoyed, but it made it a little cheesy at times. And there were a few cringe moments, like when it got a little overdramatic. With a very predictable moment close to the end of the movie (Marcus Wright's fate...you should see it coming). Although that still didn't make it any less enjoyable for me. The thing is, all these little things simply took the movie down from what had great potential to be very memorable. Instead, it's just a summer blockbuster. It's good, but not great.
That being said, I absolutely loved the unexpected comedy in it. It may not be a good thing that most of it was unintentionally funny...but there were a few moments that were actually hysterical. Maybe I'm twisted, but the scene with Blair and the three country guys she runs into was worth the price of admission. Cliched and predictable...but the way they went about it was absolutely hilarious. Just inspired comedy there ("Well, what have we here?" "Antibiotics are hard to come by..." "I GOT two friends..."--seriously, this had me cracking up).
In short, I would recommend you see this movie. It's enjoyable, there's a lot of action, and if nothing else... it pretty much brings closure to the Terminator series.
Edit: As time went by, and I thought more about this movie, in addition to the vast amount of glaring errors it had, and other problems pointed out to me-- well, it's easy to think of this movie as kind of a piece of shit. But I still enjoyed it, maybe my expectations were at the same level as some others. I'm just saying, how can you get really really hyped to see a movie by a director who calls himself "McG"? Seriously. Anyway, I'm lowering my rating from a 3.5 to a 3, and I simply can't go lower than that. The unintentional comedy is too good.
Rating: 3 stars
Weighted Rating: (brought up because of the hilarious scene) 3.2 stars
The movie just didn't feel... "terminator."
ReplyDeleteI feel like T3 was just a bad terminator movie. T:Salvation was just like, an okay-but-not-terminator movie.
Tom posting btw, but Joe agrees.
It introduces a new character who really just doesn't develop. All the elements are there, but it just doesn't happen. The relationship between Connor and Marcus never went past a couple nods of acceptance, which should have felt significant but didn't -- at all. The blurred line between machine and man, so beautifully explored in the first couple films, didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteI was expecting... more desperation, more scenes of edge-of-survival misery. Nothing really convinced me humanity was being hunted to the edge of extinction. There was no real coherent theme and the connections represented to the previous films just felt weak and contrived.
I'm going give it a 3 I guess... worth watching since it has its moments, the machines are cool enough but overall it really fell flat for me.
Yeah, that's right I changed it to a 2.5. The more I think about it, the worse I realize it was.
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