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Terminator Salvation (2009)

tomatometer

33

Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 264
Fresh: 86 | Rotten: 178

With storytelling as robotic as the film's iconic villains, Terminator Salvation offers plenty of great effects but lacks the heart of the original films.

33

Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 39
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 26

With storytelling as robotic as the film's iconic villains, Terminator Salvation offers plenty of great effects but lacks the heart of the original films.

audience

64

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 806,614

My Rating

Movie Info

The fourth installment of the Terminator series follows an adult John Connor (played by Christian Bale) as he attempts to organize a human resistance force which could prove to be mankind's last true hope in the war against the machines. Opening in the year 2018, Terminator Salvation finds John Connor's certainty about the future shaken by the sudden appearance of a mysterious stranger named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), whose last memory is of sitting on death row and awaiting execution.

Dec 1, 2009

$125.3M

Warner Bros. Pictures

Cast

All Critics (264) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (86) | Rotten (184) | DVD (9)

It brings me very little joy to report that this version of the popular Terminator franchise is silly, obtuse, and pointless.

May 6, 2011 Full Review Source: Film.com | Comment
Film.com
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is the worst big budget summer release I've seen in some time.

May 26, 2009 Full Review Source: At the Movies | Comments (9)
At the Movies
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's a fun time at the movies.

May 26, 2009 Full Review Source: At the Movies | Comments (11)
At the Movies
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Terminator Salvation is a confused, humorless grind, with nobody, from the stars to the set designers, prepared to prick its self-importance.

May 26, 2009 Full Review Source: New Yorker | Comments (3)
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The digital effects are mostly quite dazzling-not just the depictions of towering marauders...but a memorably scary sequence in which a little serpentine robot that's been taken captive thrashes furiously to save its nonlife.

May 22, 2009 Full Review Source: Wall Street Journal | Comments (3)
Wall Street Journal
Top Critic IconTop Critic

T4 is a mixed bag, but it's not f------- amateur.

May 22, 2009 Full Review Source: Rolling Stone | Comments (12)
Rolling Stone
Top Critic IconTop Critic

That the film's overall basic point has already been conveyed by the closing lines of T2 some 18 years ago shows just how completely superfluous this cash grab is.

January 21, 2012 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | Comment
TheMovieReport.com

Bangs and clangs and has some impressive effects, but it seems to have forgotten one thing: These movies used to be giddy, rock 'em, sock 'em fun. This one is just plain grim.

September 29, 2011 Full Review Source: American Profile | Comment

Doesn't amount to a hill of screws.

August 26, 2011 Full Review Source: East Bay Express | Comment
East Bay Express

Sure there were some cool action sequences and a neat cameo by the Governator (or at least a cameo of his face), but the movie doesn't hold up together well as a whole.

June 27, 2011 Full Review Source: 7M Pictures | Comment
7M Pictures

If sensation alone makes a movie work for you, then this one succeeds on those strengths every 15 seconds.

April 4, 2011 Full Review Source: Movies.com | Comment
Movies.com

Good action sequences will satisfy the adrenaline junkies and lots of throwbacks to Terminator films of yore will make the Terminator fans happy. There are actually parts of a good movie in here, but the focus is in the wrong place.

March 21, 2011 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | Comment
ComingSoon.net

Machines ultra-cool, humans not so cool in McG's noisy actioner.

January 3, 2011 Full Review Source: sbs.com.au | Comment
sbs.com.au

Listen, come over to my place this weekend; we'll rewatch Terminator 1 and 2, we'll listen to 'You Could Be Mine' by Guns N Roses, we can even discuss Edward Furlong's 'career'. And let's just pretend Terminator Salvation never happened.

October 27, 2010 Full Review Source: Quickflix | Comment (1)

McG demonstrates a complete inability to understand what made the Cameron Terminator films so good.

June 13, 2010 Full Review Source: DCist | Comments (5)

Salvation is a cold, blunt summer movie misfire, infatuated with mindless explosions like an infant with fecal matter...a lumbering, joyless detour into unappetizing Hollywood recycling.

June 2, 2010 Full Review Source: BrianOrndorf.com | Comments (2)
BrianOrndorf.com

An entertaining new entry into the Terminator saga (with the exception of either the biggest continuity error of the series or holding back critical information...

April 28, 2010 Full Review Source: MovieCrypt.com | Comment
MovieCrypt.com

It could have all been a lot worse and with some imaginative new Terminators, a great score some thrilling action set-plays, critics slating the film will be proven harsh as box office results and public opinion soon come in.

April 15, 2010 Full Review Source: Fan The Fire | Comment
Fan The Fire

Tras la fallida tercera cinta de la lucha entre hombres y máquinas, Terminator Salvation debía ser el capítulo que redimiera y reviviera la saga, sin embargo simplemente es una buena cinta de acción.

March 11, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinenganos | Comment
Cinenganos

...as fascinating as chewing styrofoam--with the occasional firecracker jammed in to make you chew faster.

December 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinemalogue.com | Comment

Just quit trying to live up to [James] Cameron and move on, Hollywood...

December 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment
Cinema Crazed

Endless rounds of boisterous battle scenes and eardrum annihilating explosions, until you couldn't care less which side wins. So if there's any real human passion rising to the surface amid the rubble, it's all about the guns, baby.

December 5, 2009 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Blu-ray discs such as this one should sport warning labels!

December 1, 2009 Full Review Source: Sci-Fi Movie Page | Comment
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Terminator Salvation

Was okay. . i didnt hate it like some but wasnt the great movie it could have been. This was the movie I think many original Terminator fans were wanting . . the battle in the future but it didnt live up to what we wanted.

June 6, 2008
jmanard52

Super Reviewer

A man on death row donates his body to science, little knowing he would wake up in the middle of a war between mankind and machine. The fourth film in the Terminator franchise, Salvation is set after the bombs have dropped and as such is the one a large proportion of the terminator fan base has been wanting pretty much

March 22, 2008
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

    1. Kyle Reese: Come with me if you want to live.
    – Submitted by Branden N (8 months ago)
    1. John Connor: You and me, we've been at war since before either of us even existed. You tried killing my mother, Sarah Connor. You killed my father, Kyle Reese. You will not kill me.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)
    1. John Connor: Win or lose, this war ends tonight!
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

Latest News for Terminator Salvation

February 9, 2010:
Terminator Franchise Rights Sold
The auction for the rights to the "Terminator" franchise is over -- and to everyone's surprise,...

January 13, 2010:
Lionsgate in the Running for Terminator Franchise?
The "Terminator" franchise needs a new home, and guess who's shopping for a franchise?

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Foreign Titles

  • Terminator Renaissance (FR)
  • Terminator 4 salvación (ES)
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