Dorkgasm Gonzo Is God

            Christian Bale really shouldn’t have yelled at the cinematographer on Terminator Salvation.  Instead, he should have been screaming at his agent for getting him involved in such a convoluted mess in the first place.  He would have been well within his rights to blow up at the screenwriters (the team that brought us Terminator 3 and Catwoman) for turning in something so bad the Sci-Fi channel wouldn’t run it.  Hell, I would have paid to see him take out the editing staff.  Still, maybe the lesson here is the same as the first two films in the franchise.  In the end, it is all our own fault.

            The opening of this film, the fourth Terminator incarnation, introduces us to the first of many problems.  Maybe I’m nitpicking, but do the credits really need to tell us the title and director twice?  From here, we meet the first unnecessary addition to what should be a basic “man vs. machine” plot.  Sam Worthington plays Marcus Wright, a death row inmate from California who occasionally has an Australian accent for no good reason other than an incompetent dialect coach.  He signs his body away to science in 2003, and from here the audience is expected to forget that they saw any previews that revealed that he gets turned into a killer robot.  Flash forward to 2018 where we meet John Connor, leader of nothing.  I know, he is supposed to in charge of saving humanity, but here he is, little more than a well-worn soldier taking orders from Michael Ironside.

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            See, it’s when he walked on the screen, audiences should have fled in terror.  Ironside plays cranky General Ashdown, a man with a plan to destroy Skynet at the source in San Francisco, thus ending the war.  But it’s Michael Ironside, who last played a General, General Katana, in Highlander 2.  Yes, folks, we saw Fonzy get on the bike and speed off toward the shark tank, but we didn’t turn away, did we?  There’s a brief explanation that the resistance has discovered an command in the radio transmissions that Skynet uses to link up all the robots, and it can be used to as an off switch.  Connor gets to lead a team into Skynet central and blow everyone up, but no one wants him saving all the human hostages the robots have.  John does the only thing he knows how to in response, he ham-radio-blogs about it.  Never mind that Skynet wants him dead and should have the tech to triangulate a simple radio broadcast, he whines to the people, and the people listen.  Speaking of the people, now enters Kyle Reese and the inexplicable stupid pilot, Blair Williams.

            Reese is supposed to be Connor’s dad, but here he is a hapless teenager who should be dead inside of ten minutes.  Marcus Wright shows up and saves the kid from a giant robot that, by all rights, should have just stepped on him.  That would only be logical, however, and everyone knows that computers are never…  Oh.  Wait.  Without his capture, the fighter pilot, Blair Williams, might never have met up with Marcus and fallen in love!  That makes perfect sense, if you’re an imbecile like McG I suppose.  Here’s also where the editing gets bad.  One second it’s raining cats and dogs, the next, the rain is gone and there’s a trio of would-be rapists.  Marcus saves Blair, she loves his beating heart, and anyone still buying into this sad excuse for a plot should jump off a cliff like the Six-Million Dollar Man.  You’ll make it across, trust me.

            The long and short of it is that you’re better off spending ten bucks to see Star Trek again.  Ignore the “film of the summer” crap you’ll see on the commercials.  Those lies were written by Fandango, and they have movie tickets to sell.  About the only things in Terminator Salvation worth seeing are Christian Bale and the eye candy.  Sure, the effects are great, but that’s why you have a Netflix account and a Blu-Ray player, isn’t it?  I am sure there will be those among you who ignore this, and venture out to see for yourselves, but you can resist and…  Oh, forget it.  I was going to try to be clever, but I’m too damned disappointed to go there.  Stay home and grill this weekend folks.  Ten bucks buys a pretty nice steak.

Final Verdict (out of five):