This wasn't the Terminator movie the haters warned me about...

[sneaky_minx]

It was so much better!

So yeah, as mentioned in the last post, I was overdue for a review of Terminator Salvation, due to my preoccupation with things such as a TV show on line addiction. (I'm healing you guys, I'm healing. :p) Plus, I was about to start it up last night, then got inspired for the new icon you see with this post, making its debut.

I wasn't sure when I'd get to see it. Going to the movies is such a rarity for me. Something's really got to make me want to see it for me to go, especially since I have 1.Netflix 2.books to read 3.TV shows that entertain me and stimulate me more than most movies. So, a lot to compete with. Thus, it's a special occasion for me. And I also wanted to wait for my nephew Leighton to be free so I could take him as an early birthday present. Well, it all worked out. My sister and brother-in-law wanted to go see it anyway (he's a Terminator fan, she's never seen the originals, but still thought the movie looked good) and my other sister and her husband were going out of town, but Leighton was staying in town at a cousin's anyway. So, we all decided to go together.

Now, before I get into spoilery territory, I will say that as a Terminator fan, I really enjoyed it. (I'm still perplexed by the hate.) And my sister, who isn't always into these kinds of movies, really enjoyed it, as well - despite not having seen the originals. Below are some random thoughts/reactions I had.


In no particular/chronological order:

Hot, hot, HAWT! guys all around. Whee! My sister was totally jonesing for more Sam Worthington afterwards. (She already went in jonesing for Christian Bale.)

Acting was great all-around, though Worthington had an accent slip a couple times. Still, I was probably the only one who noticed because I went in knowing he was an Aussie.

Lots of good action scenes. Really good ones. It was definitely easy to get caught up in the excitement.

It was kind of dark, but I think some people are exaggerating just how dark it was. It was more complex than most basic explosions action movies, but I don't see how that would be a problem. Its serious tone was somewhere in the middle of the original and the sequel.

"No fate." - They really played well with this, and I had to remind my brother-in-law about it when we left. He came out feeling lukewarm, having seen the originals. He said, "You know how everything's going to happen." And I was like, "No you don't." The whole idea that was even introduced in T2 is that things change. There's no such thing as fate. John Connor thought he knew what to expect, but he didn't. You change the past, you change the future, etc. Thus, there were still plenty of moments when you had no idea what was going to happen or HOW things were going to happen.

I was expecting more Helena Bonham-Carter, especially after that pic of her was released earlier. Still, good use of her, though the world could always use more Bonham-Carter.

I was NOT expecting the focus of the lethal injection to come full circle at the very end. I thought that was a brilliant choice on McG's part.

I saw the scene when Kyle tells John he doesn't want to leave him, and John says "You Didn't!" beforehand so I wasn't expecting it to impact me like it did. But, in total context, in that moment, you just get to see how brilliantly subtle the looks on Kyle and John's faces was, and I almost teared up a little. Great job by Christian and Anton.

When John refused to leave without saving Marcus, all I could think "That's right! Your mama taught you better than that! You don't leave a man behind, especially a hot ass like that!"

A tradition I thought the movie kept to in the Terminator franchise? Strong female characters. (From what I've read, Star Trek the movie lacked those.) I think what's always been great was that they didn't feel the need to defeminize Sarah Connor to make her strong, instead, they used a stereotypical female role as her fuel. At the end of the day, Sarah Connor was a mom. She cared about her son and humanity in general. She got her strength from that care as well as gave her son strength. We see Kate playing the supportive wife, but she's not just any supportive wife. She's as proactive as she can be, she's the doctor. And we also see a female solider. Yes, some may argue her saving Marcus was a little shmaltzy, but she didn't just do it because she had a crush or anything. She did it because she was a human, and she realized that John Connor was too on-mission to let his human side show. If anything, she set a good example for John, which helped open his eyes to stand up to command for the sake of doing the human thing and trying to save those prisoners. But hey, maybe that's just me.

The ending was slightly sappy, but still very touching. Especially because of the aforementioned focus on the lethal injection chemicals again. I think there was a lot to play around with in terms of defining humanity, and they did it well.

Again, what was wrong the movie? I'll have to go back and read some reviews and stuff now since I don't have to worry about being spoiled. As I'm still confused. Then again, that was probably fanboys, and nothing can make them happy.