BOTTOM LINE: “Terminator Salvation” manages to come close to re-creating the iconic action, style and mood of the first two Terminator films, but the logic gaps in the story knee-cap the film to the extreme, and Christian Bale’s take on John Connor is highly off-key.

THE GOOD: Having a Terminator film directed by McG sounded like sacrilege when it was first announced. To give him a credit, he has managed to create a film that infuses some thrilling action sequences that re-establish the non-stop threat that machines as a force will never stop hunting humans, a threat which was lost in the last film. Whenever any of the characters go up against the machines, you really feel how lethal they are, with two standout sequences coming to mind: the opening scene where John Connor (Bale) fights a T600 in a desert location and his fight with the newly constructed T800 (with Arnie’s face brilliantly pasted on top for continuity – very cool!). There is an attempt in this story to amp up the intrigue with the Marcus Wright character, played by Sam Worthington who is essentially the core of the film. Worthington delivers an amazingly emotional, yet very physical performance and has the most to work with. Who is Wright? Where did he come from? Why is he so tough? His storyline makes the film worth watching as it comes to reveal Skynet’s devious plan to infiltrate the resistance, only to have it backfire when Wright decides, as a machine with a heart, that he would rather save Connor and his band than re-engage with Skynet. With Wright’s storyline and the thrilling action, the film is quite watchable and entertaining, much more so than T3 which did not have a mood or an atmosphere to it that this film has in spades. The war between humans and machines, as depicted in flashback-style sequences in the previous films, is wonderfully realised visually in this film, and McG deserves some credit for that. “Terminator Salvation” also has a lot of nice homages to the previous films.

THE BAD: The problems with this film start when you analyse its story and how it fits in to this franchise of films. The whole point of the Terminator story is that Skynet wants to kill John Connor, thus removing the leader of the human resistance and as such, the resistance will fall. This film continues this story, however, there is a major problem in logic in the story presented here; either that or Skynet is actually quite stupid. Skynet identifies Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) as Connor’s father early on, and manages to capture him as one of its top targets. Skynet then uses Reese as bate to lure Connor to its main base where Skynet can kill both of them. The glaring question of course is, if Skynet kills Reese straight away before Connor sends him back in time, Connor does not exist. Why waste time using him as bait? It would appear Skynet is stupid, but on the other hand, Skynet is clever enough in luring the resistance leadership in to a death trap using a false signal that appears to disable the machines. Another issue is the climax; the story establishes Skynet’s headquarters in San Francisco and through an ad-hoc plan in the film’s final act, Connor manages to blow up the entire facility. Yet the last shot of the film sees Connor and his team flying off in helicopters, announcing that the fight with Skynet continues as the machines are global, and thus the franchise can continue. If they destroyed Skynet’s main facility, a point described early on in the film as a way to end the war, why is there more fighting to be done by the end of the story? These logic gaps in effect destroy the credibility of the story, which is a shame because the action is very well done. One other point of contention is Christian Bale’s take on John Connor; he does not seem to play him in the same spirit as Edward Furlong from T2 or Nick Stahl from T3. He looks bored, blank and wooden most of the time, with the occasional moment where he screams at the resistance leadership. The character is a tough smart-ass; Bale plays Connor as tough, but with no life or fun in him, despite the apocalyptic conditions he finds himself in.