After seeing Terminator Salvation I thought, "why did they bother?"
I also thought "damn, when will my ears stop ringing?" but more on that later. Back to the first question.
What we have in Terminator Salvation is a film missing several crucial elements that the other three films in the franchise - a story, a sense of fun, a bad guy and an Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Really, it's Arnie's franchise and if you try to make a movie without him, it's just not going to be that great. And a digitally animated Arnie just doesn't count.
Without Arnie, Salvation also misses the deadpan fun he brought to the series. People may mock Arnie's acting but it's actually pretty hard to play an emotionless robot and get laughs.
Instead, with Salvation, we have a very intense, very serious very un-fun film which totally goes against the grain of the franchise. Even the stunts - and there are hundreds of them - feel serious and not something you're supposed to look at and go "cool".
A bit of levity would have lightened the mood but instead Salvation is a humourless grind.
The story - such that it is sees John Connor (Bale) as a soldier in the resistance of 2018, fighting the evil machines of Skynet. Also in the mix is the mysterious Marcus Wright (Worthington) a murderer executed in 2003 but somehow brought back to life. That obviously has something to do with consent forms donating his body to science that he signed before he was killed.
He meets up with a young Kyle Reese (Yelchin) and that later makes him of much use to Connor. If you remember your Terminator history Reese went back in time, did the deed with Sarah Connor, who begat John.
So it's obviously very much in John's interest to find Kyle before Skynet does - otherwise he can't be born (or something - the time travel issue in the Terminator films always does my head in).
But there's no real excitement in that quest because there's no-one chasing them. Well, actually there are lots of robots chasing them, which is the problem. The other films had one single bad guy which amps the suspense; here we have a range of robots - terminator units, motorcycles, undersea creatures, giant Transformer rip-offs and others - all of which get destroyed fairly quickly.
Thus there isn't the tension brought about by having a single relentless pursuer. There's just a long line of interchangeable assassins, none of which are around long enough to inspire any emotion in us at all.
Speaking of emotion, Bale has just two in the entire film. He either plays a generic tough guy, talking through clenched teeth or a borderline crazy man when he yells. His hammy performance makes his much-publicised blow-up on-set all the more amusing because it's clear he thinks he's doing serious work here.
Much better is Australian Worthington in his Hollywood debut. His character essentially has the lead role and he brings a bit of emotion to the part - though he does have trouble with his American accent.
As for that ringing in my ears, that's because Salvation - with all its action scenes and explosions - is incredibly loud.
Basically Terminator Salvation is all sound and fury - and not much else.
Two stars.
TERMINATOR SALVATION (M)
Stars: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: McG
Screening at Greater Union Wollongong and Shellharbour, Hoyts Warrawong and Roxy Cinema Nowra
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