I strongly suspect the next movie is going to take place in a 2011. John Connor is going to travel back in time and he’s going to have to galvanise the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They’ve figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you’re going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be fucking awesome.

Now another rumour from Bleeding Cool tells us the film will be set in a post-apocalyptic London! Is it just me or don’t we want to see a heap of T800′s, with laser guns, destroying shit in LA if they’re going to keep pumping out McG movies? Not conventional weapons fighting T600′s!

Which leads me onto who is going to direct T5. My guess is McG will take the reins once again because at some point he’ll come out and say “We didn’t do things I envisioned the first time around so I’m going to correct my mistakes and make a kick-ass Terminator film”. It’s still unknown whether he’s contractually obligated to direct but either way, I think he’ll stick with it and therefore the chances of getting a decent Terminator movie in the near future is paper thin. Bad news for fans as we know McG just doesn’t have the directing chops to do a Terminator film justice.

Finally, what would I like to see with T5 if they have to continue this new trilogy? Well Film School Rejects have a terrific post on 10 Things We Demand From ‘Terminator 5′. They really hit the nail on the head with that post and it’s well worth a read if you care at this point.

I don’t think there’s been a film I’ve made where there hasn’t been some kind of physical fight,” he said. “I’ve been headbutted by an A-list star. Square in the head. An inch lower and my nose would have been obliterated.”

He added: “I probably shouldn’t – but it was Bill Murray. Y’know, it’s a passionate industry.”

McG directed Murray on Charlie’s Angels and I can’t help but wonder that both Murray and Christian Bale were incredibly frustrated with McG’s directorial style and blew a gasket on set. Sure Murray and Bale can be hot-headed at times but I haven’t heard them going nuts at any other director. Hrmmmmmmm.

** Warning there are some potential minor spoilers to the film so read with caution. I might also add there’s some serious geeking out on the Terminator franchise and James Cameron love and being such a fan of the first two films, this review is no doubt bias somewhat **

Okay so it’s Terminator week here at Hoovy Headquarters and after my first post, I figured it was time to review the new Terminator film, Terminator Salvation directed by McG. So being such a fan of the first two films, loving the trailers that hit, I have to admit I was pretty excited seeing this. When it got released in the US a couple of weeks back, the reviews started pouring in and they weren’t pretty. In fact they were downright terrible. Okay, so the level of enthusiasm drops considerably. Then, I hear the film score and the classic synth Terminator music that Brad Fiedel began was missing. The theme was there but away in the distance. So that shat me a little more. Now I’m at the stage where I’m thinking “Well, is this going to be a Terminator movie at all since apparently McG wants to go in a new direction, etc…? Whatever, if it has T800′s in it, I’m still down and kinda excited”. That’s how I was going into this movie: a little excited but expecting something fairly average.

So now after seeing the film, is it a worthy Terminator movie? In short “no”. The argument that it’s supposedly a new direction for the franchise doesn’t fly. Of course people are going to expect something as good as or better than the films that have come before it in the series. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines had a couple of good scenes (the street chase comes to mind) but that film didn’t work overall because it overstepped that line of being too campy. You might say that there were campy elements in T2 and that’s true, but director James Cameron always knew to keep it from overstepping the line. The moment something cheesy started to happen, something incredibly realistically violent happened. That’s why Cameron is the better filmmaker when it comes to the Terminator franchise. He knows the ‘rules’ of Hollywood cinema very, very well.

With Terminator Salvation you HAVE to compare it to the other films in the franchise because we expect a certain degree of accomplishment. Whether that be the action sequences, the direction, the characters, the story, the music etc… What becomes immediately apparent with Terminator Salvation is how awful the script is. I mean, god awful. Any of the themes about humanity and machines that Cameron infused so well into the first two pictures, is sorely missing here. What sets apart a run-of-the-mill action movie to a great action movie is story, story and story. Sure, Cameron’s films aren’t going to win any screenwriting awards but at least there was something a little deeper going on in terms of the key Terminator themes. In Terminator Salvation, you have none of those. Zip. Even, with identifiable characters on board, at no point do you care about the characters. Who is to blame for this? Both the screenwriters and the director. It’s abundantly clear McG doesn’t know how to direct actors at all. People have been complaining about Christian Bale’s performance in this film and we all know he can act (look at American Psycho) and as a director, you need to get performances from your actors and I don’t think McG knew how to handle Bale. It kinda reminded me of James Cameron and Arnold. Arnold isn’t the world’s greatest actor but when he’s in the hands of a capable director, he’s a movie star. With McG, it’s almost like he doesn’t know what he’s doing with performances.

Okay so the story sucks big-time. But who cares right? The Terminator films pride themselves on action! I want my action! This surprised me too because the reviews were saying the action sequences were great, thrilling and on the edge of your seat. Call me harsh, but there wasn’t ONE sequence in this movie that came close to the ingenuity of the action sequences of T2. Sure Cameron is considered by some to be the master of action but remember, for fans, as a director you have to lift your game and bring it 110% if you’re going to follow in someone else’s footsteps and get respect. Unfortunately McG couldn’t even get that right. Sure there’s explosions, there’s chases, etc… but it’s all been done before and better. The action isn’t terrible it’s just not giving us anything fresh. And fresh, well that would have given McG SOME credit. The underwater tentacles? Crap. The Transformer harvester? Meh! I won’t go on about the score but yeah, Danny Elfman’s orchestral score services the movie in the most average way possible but we want the original score. It’s another character and we need it back for the next films.

So for Terminator fans, is there anything worth the price of admission? Luckily there is and this nudges it above the 2/4 star rating. First of all, there’s Anton Yelchin who does an awesome young Kyle Reese. He’s much better here than in Star Trek. Hopefully he’ll have a larger role in the inevitable sequels. Michael Biehn would be proud. Then there’s the last 20 minutes (besides the ending) that are quite cool. Fans will love this part of the film because it reminds us how good the original films are. The Terminator theme kicks in for two seconds whilst we see a familiar face (albeit not overly great CGI) turn up and it brought some goose bumps to this seasoned fan. The T800′s make a nice return too and finally, we have an identifiable villain. But this is another problem with the film and McG – the elements fans will like in the movie are all from the first two films so essentially, there’s nothing new to enjoy. I remember McG saying he knew he had to bring something fresh to the franchise, but I swear I couldn’t find one redeeming feature.

Lots of people have been singing praises for Sam Worthington’s character but I wasn’t convinced. He gets to be badass and that’s cool, but his character doesn’t scream “I want to see more of him!” That said, he’s probably more interesting than Bale in the movie but again, that’s the screenplays fault, not Bale’s imho.

In the end, I think James Cameron is probably sitting in his Avatar editing room thinking “I can’t believe they have fucked up my baby” even though he’ll come out and say “Terminator Salvation was okay” at some point because well, he said T3 was “okay” too and we all know it wasn’t. For those people who just want a summer, popcorn flick, I guess it’s passable entertainment. Personally, I think Star Trek was a much more exciting popcorn film. For Terminator fans who loved both the action sequences AND the story/mythos of the original films, they will be fairly disappointed with what McG and the screenwriters have given us. If I had $200 million to spend on a Terminator movie and Cameron wasn’t available, I’d first of all get a seasoned director who can direct action as well as actors, hire a decent screenwriter (one usually works best) and give fans what they want – just one more good Terminator film. That’s all I ask.