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Film

Review: Terminator: Salvation

No Arnie, but this Terminator is a killer comeback

June 4, 2009 13:33
He's back

ByJonathan Foreman, Jonathan Foreman

3 min read

It is hard to believe the Terminator franchise is a quarter of a century old. The first film was an exciting, low-budget action thriller that, like so much science fiction, extrapolated from current trends to predict a dark future for mankind. It launched the careers of Arnold Schwarzenegger and director James Cameron.

The 1991 sequel, Terminator 2 (which was also directed by Cameron and starred Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton), was one of the most expensive movies of its era. It boasted revolutionary computer-generated effects and was significant for the way it epitomised a new sci-fi fashion for tough, gun-toting heroines. Like the first film it expressed an unease — if not in society as a whole, then certainly in Hollywood — about computing technology.

Given the spectacular advances of that technology since then, it is not surprising that the theme of the franchise — that our technology threatens our lives and our humanity — retains its power. Of course, the irony of the films is that they themselves are more dependent on computers than any other movie genre. And all too often, the more high-tech such movies become, the less interesting they are as stories.

There was strong evidence of this tendency in the rather tired Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the last in the series to star Schwarzenegger. The latest and fourth instalment is an undeniable improvement — fresher, more inventive and much more exciting. Directed by an action wizard who goes by the name of McG (real name Joseph McGinty Nichol), it boasts terrific chases and battle sequences.