When I first heard that a fourth Terminator movie was going to be done I have to admit I wasn?t all that thrilled. The third one left a bad taste in my mouth, and I?m sure in a lot of others as well. I wasn?t thrilled with McG being the director; I haven?t really liked any of his work so far that would convince me that he was the man for the job. The only glimmer of hope that I saw out of this entire project was the casting of Christiane Bale. There must have been something good about it that Bale decided to jump on board and play John Conner. I love Christine Bale, he?s one of the best actors working in the industry today and I know that if he?s attached to something then it can?t be all that bad.
Really the movie wasn?t bad, it was enjoyable. Would I go as far as saying it?s the best movie out of the series, no. It is a much better improvement from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, but it?s nowhere near as good as the first and second movies. I?ll give McG the credit he deserves; he did direct a worthy sequel/prequel to the franchise. And he did a fantastic job when it came to the action sequences. I loved the giant robot machine sequence and all of the stuff in the end-taking place in the terminator factory. All the action stuff was great. And the special effects involving all the different machines were cool as well. I really liked the snake like robots that were found in the water.
But there were a few things that I didn?t care for which in the end kind of made the movie a let down for me. What I like about the first two movies other then James Cameron directing them is the atmospheric feeling of dread. I know that it sounds weird but maybe it?s just the way Cameron directed it but thats what I always felt while watching those two movies. And I personally associate that feeling along with the franchise. I think knowing what is to come in the future and glimpses that the audience sees from them sets the tone. In this movie that future that we the fans have been getting glimpses of is finally here but I don?t get that same tone at all. And because of that it didn?t feel at all like a Terminator movie to me.
Like I said before I do love Christiane Bale and he was good in the movie but I think he did go a little overboard at moments. And the whole Batman voice throughout the entire movie really was annoying, it was not needed and it?s getting old fast. The Marcus Wright character was really cool, only problems I had was that they shouldn?t have given all that much detail about the character in the trailer. I would have preferred to be surprised. The actor that played him, Sam Worthington, did an all right acting job. But you can clearly tell that he?s an Australian actor cause he was going in and out of an American accent and his own the entire movie.
I am interested in seeing where the rest of the franchise will go. I do hope that next time they will just go forward with making it rated R. I know a lot of people were up in arms about it being PG13, and I think that it could have hurt the initial out come of the film. I believe the highest it has gotten at the box office is number 2 and in the past week has been declining. I think it was an overall fun summer movie to go see at the theaters. But I don?t think it lived up to the expectations that I was hoping for. I do however recommend seeing it, especially at the theater cause it just looks great on the big screen.