The fourth movie in the sci-fi series Terminator: Salvation is directed by a cheeseburger called McG. That explains why the movie is like so much fast food – cheap and crunchy, high in energy, but ultimately low in nutrition. Excessive consumption may lead to high blood pressure.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future where machines have taken over the world, it stars Christian Bale as the prophesied saviour of the human race. Now Christian is normally a very good actor. But here, he gives an almost one-note performance that has him shouting and yelling most of the time – as if he missed hearing his real voice on The Dark Knight.
The machines have the upper hand: They are even louder. Tearing through buildings and stomping on gas stations, the giant robots look unmistakably Transformer-ish. When one giant robot releases two robot motorbikes from its legs, one is tempted to run through the list of Transformer models in one’s mind, to see which could fight them off.
Fast and action-packed, the fourth film in the Terminator series is more videogame than movie, more explosions than emotion, more machine than man. It is better than the third, but doesn’t do justice to the first two, Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Those two stand among the very best science-fiction movies. They capture, expand and invigorate the imagination. In contrast, Terminator: Salvation looks and feels like something built out of scraps of other post-apocalyptic/war/action movies and videogames.
But regardless of what we think, we know you’ll probably go watch it. And chances are, you might enjoy it. Yet we doubt you’ll be talking about it much after the credits roll – let alone remember it.