Terminator Salvation... takes you on an action-packed ride from the desperate world of the Resistance straight into the inner workings of Skynet.

You'll enjoy hearing famous lines from the previous
films, laugh at a surprise "cameo" and marvel at this new generation of machines.
 

  It's fun to see the young Kyle Reese in his muffled get-up foiling terminators with a mute side kick. Made me think of young Luke Skywalker! Not sure if that's good or bad!

The machines are fascinating - some seem surprisingly easy to kill; others are insidious and nasty. As always, there's always one that just refuses to die! My favorite new machines - those crazy snake-like creatures in the river!

  Sam Worthington steals Christian Bale's thunder in the plum role of Marcus Howard. Is he human? Is he machine? Well, a litte of both. He's a death row inmate reincarnated as a machine. Worthington is great - conflicted and bad-ass like all good action heroes.

Bale, on the other hand, struggles with the thankless role of savior JOhn Connor. Like most women, I like Bale. Every women I told that I was going to see the new Terminator movie told me the same exact thing: "I like Christian Bale." Translation: "He's hot, I'll watch him in anything." Well, ladies, here's your chance to prove it. There's not a lot to love here. He's dirty and scruffy. If he's not kicking metal butt - rather unconvincingly, I might add, he's giving an uninspiring speech over the short wave to rally the troops or listening endlessly to his mother's taped messages - yikes! Those were boring enough in the first movie.

In the previous movies, John Connor is always asking: "Why me? Why am I so special?"  In this movie, I'd hoped we'd get an answer. Unfortunately, we never see how John Connor becomes the savior of the human race.  Yes, he's the clear leader, people are listening to him, but why? How did he carve out this place for himself in human history? It's hard to see him as the leader when he's really just one guy who's extremely lucky and effective against the machines.  To me, he's not the savior, he's the Jack Bauer of 2018.

Think about it:

Bauer has a really bad day
Connor's had a really bad life

Bauer's got Chloe
Connor's got the best tech team in the Resistance

Bauer carries a man-purse of weapons
Connor always has a stash of weapons

Bauer can improvise grabbing anything handy to kill his enemy
Connor makes do with what's at hand at Skynet HQ

Bauer's partners always meet an unfortunate end
Connor's always the last man standing

Bauer's cell phone never fails
Connor's got a Sony!

Bauer's a slightly-built guy who always manages to beat the crap out of much-larger enemies
Connor's tiny compared to the machines he destroys sometimes in hand-to-hand combat

Bauer's always getting double-crossed
Connor's terminators get rebooted

Bauer's family is always being targeted
Connor's family - "You tried to kill my Mother before I was born. You killed my Father!"

Bauer's fate is uncertain at the end of his day
Connor's fate is uncertain at the end of T4

Thankfully, the movie is mostly action leaving us little time to wonder over the implausibility of it all. Don't fret yourself over silly details like where is the Resistance getting its endless supply of jet fuel, bullets, flares, weapons or aircraft?

  Or, how does Connor's wife stay so fresh-faced and clean while she lives in an underground hovel?

  And, don't get me started on Moon Bloodgood's hair. Apparently, the Resistance maintains an endless supply of high-quality hair products which are reserved for their female fighter pilots.

As a straight-out summer action flick, Terminator Salvation is fun and engaging. As a reboot to the Terminator franchise, it's an immense improvement over T3 - but anything would be. I give it an "8" on a scale of 1 to 10.

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