terminatorsalvation_6_1024In Terminator: Salvation, Christian Bale (the most recent Batman) plays the adult John Connor.  The year is 2018 and John Connor is the man who will lead the humans to victory over the machines in the future.  The Resistance is having a hard time battling Skynet; those damn Terminators are rascally little things to kill.

Connor discovers, in the opening of the movie, that the machines are experimenting on humans.  He doesn’t know why, but he knows it must be stopped.  His commanders, who don’t think that John-boy is the salvation they all need, know more than they let on.  They do know there is a secret signal that can disable the machines.  John tests it, it works.  Time to go to Terminator central and shut these muthas down once and for all.  And, of course, blow their metallic asses off the face of the nuked earth.


Of course Connor wants to save the humans that are trapped there like cattle.  His commanders, especially General Ashdown (Michael Ironside), could care less because, you know, it’s war.  Complicating matters is the fact that Kyle Reese is being held captive by the machines; the teenage Kyle is the guy who, when he grows up, Connor will send back in time to protect his mother, Sarah Connor, and who will also father John.  So if Kyle dies, no John Connor, no Resistance, humanity loses.  It gets complicated.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot, there’s a guy named Marcus who was executed in 2003 by lethal injection, but luckily he donated his body to science, Cyberdine specifically, creators of Skynet, and he wakes up in 2018 half-man, half-machine, and total bad-ass.  Connor sides with him, against his better judgement, only to save his teenage father.

Whooh.  Just wiping the sweat from my brow.

T4 is a movie you just have to go along for the ride.  It’s been awhile since I’ve watched the first three films, and I don’t remember everything exactly, but even if I had watched them before seeing Salvation, I’m not sure I still would have understood everything.  This is an action movie, pure and simple, and on that level it works.  It’s loud, it’s fun, there is always something happening.  Explosions, chases, fights, Terminators-  it’s a summer movie straight up.

4 out of 5
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