Tuesday, June 2, 2009

De-Humanizing In All The Wrong Ways

Terminator Salvation (2009)directed by McG


Lots of explosions. Lots of fancy new Terminator robots. Helena Bonham Carter and Common are there for some reason, and I don't mind looking at Bryce Dallas Howard.
So far this years worth of Blockbuster franchise kool-aid, has been dismal. Last year we had The Dark Knight, The Incredible Hulk, Iron-Man, Indiana Jones 4, and Hellboy 2, all of which I would gladly watch again before anything that's come out so far this year. Star Trek and Wolverine were origin films where the origin is reduced to montage, and Terminator Salvation is the post-apocalyptic climactic end of franchise film, that, doesn't end. In fact it suggests a new line of post Judgement Day films to come, most likely with a cg Christian Bale next time, so he doesn't attack anyone on the set while he has to get into character for the complex and nuanced man of our times, John Connor.
The action scenes were decent, about on par with the last film, but nothing to write home about. Watching this just makes me wish I could have a stamp made up with one of my favorite bit's from "Storytelling", ahem:
"The story's a piece of shit. You express nothing but banalities and, formally speaking, are unable to construct a single compelling sentence. You ride on a wave of cliche's so worn, in fact, it actually approaches a level of grotesquerie. And your subtitle, 'the rawness of truth' is that supposed to be a joke of some sort? Or are you just being pretentious?" By the end I was disappointed that the machines didn't win, they seemed to have good thing going...

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