Film Review: Terminator Salvation

I can now say that I've seen all Terminator movies (even the now terminated Fox TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I'm not much of an avid watcher of this show as I am/was with the movies) including this one. I thought this movie was pretty good.


Here's my review of...

[Warning! ... for those who haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled...]

Terminator Salvation (2009)



Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington


Watch the trailer below:

[source: CineMarkTheater]

Brief Synopsis:
After Skynet has destroyed much of humanity in a nuclear holocaust, a group of survivors led by John Connor struggles to keep the machines from finishing the job.


Terminator Salvation was very good. I loved and enjoyed the action, the spectacular visual effects, the cast (esp. Christian Bale and Sam Worthington), direction, and story. While I love Christian Bale in this movie and he was good as the older John Connor, I must say Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright was pretty good (hot and sexy to look at too, lol) and was one of the highlights of this film, for me. Can't say much on Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor, John Connor's pregnant wife as she had a small role. The rest of the cast were good as well.

There were so many scenes and moments I enjoyed watching from this movie, which reminds me a lot of the previous Terminator movies. And like brianli888 said (over at imdb board for TS), "One of the things I enjoyed about this film was the references, both obvious and subtle, that it made to earlier Terminator films." I totally agree. So, I thought I'd compiled his list here and others posted by imdb board members as they already covered pretty much every references I was going to write/post here, lol.

Here's a compiled list of the references from the Terminator movies (copied and pasted here from imdb messageboard of TS...click on the link below to read more!):

References to the previous terminator films

• Arnold making a naked cameo appearance (well actually, Arnold's face digitally composed onto a body double)
• "I'll be back!" (the best line and catch phrase from T2), "Come with me if you want to live." and "What day is it? What year?" were all previous lines from previous Terminator movies.
• The climactic battle takes place in a factory or industrial setting (like all three of the previous films).
• John fighting the crawling terminator without legs in the opening fight scene was similar to Sarah Connor fighting a legless terminator at the end of T1.
• In the factory fight, there were many shots of the terminator's feet as it walks up a set of stairs, very similar to the ending T1 fight.
• The HK's or hunter killers (which were seen in the futuristic scenes of all the previous movies).
• John walking backwards, unloading shotgun shells at a terminator that is slowly and menacingly walking towards him, was similar to Sarah Connor at the end of T2 against the T-1000.
• The "typing" sequence that takes place after Marcus Wright is executed takes many of the words from Sarah Connor's opening speech in T2.
• The T-600 appear to have rotten or molten rubber skin on them, referring to Reese's description in T1.
• Marcus knocks a guy off a bike, just like Arnold did in T3.
  
  The "concentration camp" scene with Reese, Star and the other captives in Skynet Central is based off Reese's description from T1.
• John listens to cassette tapes of his mother, the same ones that Sarah Connor made at the end of T1. I heard that Linda Hamilton actually did the voice in an uncredited role.
• John holding the picture (which you can see it here to your left) while listening to one of the recordings of his late mother Sarah Connor was, of course, a picture of Linda Hamilton (best known as Sarah Connor) from the first Terminator film, towards the end.

• The factory is used to manufacture terminators. This is reminiscent of an early teaser trailer for T2 that showed how a terminator was made.
• Kyle also reloads the shotgun one handed like Sarah Connor did in T2.

And many more! (Also, check out and read some interesting trivia for Terminator Salvation here).

Overall, this movie was great and I loved and enjoyed it from beginning to end. I was surprised by the ending too and looks like there's a sequel, which I'm very interested to see after seeing this one. Definitely worth watching esp. if you're a Terminator movies fan. Go see it!


My Terminator Salvation Film Rating: ! (10/10; A+)