[movie review]Teminator:Salvation<---spoiler alert

[GabrielsThoughts]

you know h0w the last ten seconds of Prates of the Caribbean 2 just ruined the entire movie? Terminator salvation has that moment at the very end that essentially ruins a masterpiece. Brilliant storytelling, at its finest, is marred by this glaring mustache and goatee that was  pasted on the Mona Lisa.  The movie earns a definite four gold stars out of five , but would have, could have, been solid gold if it weren't for the lead weight on the  end... Now for the spoilers. okay.  in 2003 a woman, who may or may not be "Sarah Conner" in the final stages of cancer,  convinces Markus Wright to donate his body to science...Markus is a Death Row Inmate, who could be a former marine turned bank robber or he could be a former circus clown. that's it.  All we truly know of  Markus is that he feels responsible for the death of his brother and a police officer. My theory is that during a Bank Heist gone south, the police officer shot his brother and then he (Markus) shot the sheriff and was quickly taken down by the deputy. After kissing Sarah, so he could know what death tastes like, he happily donates his body to Science. Then we fast forward to the future John conner is Larry King, giving hope to the hopeless with his untraceable radio broadcasts, and his staging a handful of prison breaks as an unranked officer and Quasi Political role  in the human resistance movement.

Markus wakes up naked in the middle of nowhere... After running around naked in the pouring rain he stumbles upon a dead body, steals his clothes, wanders into L.A. Hooks up with Kyle Reece and plays metal gear solid as they avoid the terminators. That woman from Alien vs Predator is there too....only she's much smaller and hasn't traveled back in time yet to stop the aliens...anyway, shortly after hot wiring a jeep they encounter a small Frisbee-droid  that chases them until it's destroyed. Then they pull into an abandoned 7-11, there they encounter a small cell of renegade freedom fighters, who only decide to help them because the little alien girl has cute as a button appeal... but wait, there isn't but a moment of peace before the decpticon air and gound forces...er I mean  skynet's super army of super droids  show up and kill everyone. ( with the exception of Kyle Reece, Markus, and the little girl) team Reece escapes after  blowing up the gas station, but Megabot sends out his waspinator-cycles to catch the humans. after destroying all the cycle drones  they reach a bridge, where Jetscream is lying in wait. Kyle Reece and [Sari], (god i wished I was paying more attention when they mentioned the girl's name) are captured by skynet... Markus then grabs an ax.... jumps about 60 feet onto, or rather on top of the the cargo ship and carves small hole into the thin aluminum outer shell. Markus is then captured by Megabot and thrown into the river when the Resistance shows up.... one of the pilots ejects and is later saved by  Markus, who just happens to stumble upon her in the desert. Markus and the pilot become fast friends, and the pilot conveniently leads    Markus "Hardac" Wright to their secret rebel base.... at first they think he has prosthetic limbs but it is soon discovered Markus is a purely synthetic with the exception of a human heart and organic nervous system... they chain him to the wall John Conner interrogates Markus and leaves an inept guard to watch him. The guard is soon distracted by the pilot, after the guard leaves the pilot helps Markus to escape.....durring the escape Markus rescues John Conner  and Conner trusts Markus enough to coordinate the rescue of Kyle Reese. Markus discovers that t mind/brains/personality running skynet is none oter than the Cancer patient from the beginning of the movie... who I strongly suspect was supposed to be Sarah Conner... anyway it is revealed that Markus was the perfect drone who not only captured John Conner, but Kyle Reece (John's father) of course Markus wisely waits until Sarah has repaired all the damage to his cybernetic systems before defecting.... and with no resistance from "skynet" he saves John Conner from the T-800. Markus looses to the Arnold bot. distracting the T-800  long enough for john to set off a series of nuclear power cells.  Then T800 is melted by hot steel and frozen by liquid nitrogen and john revives Markus....but OMG! T800 is still alive and stabs Conner with a lead pipe through the heart just as Markus is revived.Markus then deactivates the T800... John is still alive for some reason and Marcus carries John off to the waiting helecopter.... the movie for me ends here, because it is just awesome 5 star gold, but  then  comes the ridiculous ending strapped on with duct tape and stupidity.

The movie got a standing ovation... literally, everyone in the theater clapped when the movie came to a close. I couldn't believe it.  For me, the ending broke the movie. It was stupid and unnecessary. For me, it took what could have been the greatest movie ever, one of  the greatest stories ever told, and turned it into a steaming pile of dog dookie.

[Ryudo Lee]

This brings up an amusing tidbit.

In my local newspaper, The Times Picayune, their resident movie critic wrote up an article ripping Salvation.  The article began on the front of the Living section and continued to the next section.  Well right after the article was a big ad for this movie.  The editor of the paper doesn't get paid enough.

[Alondro]

In the several plot summaries I've read, it sounds rather bleah.  Overkill of the concept by far.

Not to mention they'd have to explain REALLY well how in the hell a cancer patient ends up controlling Skynet instead of the super-computer/desktop PCs of the world. 

Was it a "Lawnmower Man"-esque scenario?

Meh, it seems to me like the whole thing is filled with plot holes in relation to the other movies.

[Dekari]

you know h0w the last ten seconds of Prates of the Caribbean 2 just ruined the entire movie? Terminator salvation has that moment at the very end that essentially ruins a masterpiece.

(content removed due to being TLDR)

For me, it took what could have been the greatest movie ever, one of  the greatest stories ever told, and turned it into a steaming pile of dog dookie.

You still haven't explained why you think this.  I thought it stuck to the story rather well.  What made you think otherwise?  And this time try to explain it with less transformer analogies.

[GabrielsThoughts]

i don't recall actually mentioning any transformers other than waspinator... and an off hand joke about the decepticons

[Dekari]

i don't recall actually mentioning any transformers other than waspinator... and an off hand joke about the decepticons

Yeah, ok, I agree.  I probably should have excluded that remark.  That and I may have been a little blind as to your reason of what killed the movie....I get distracted when I see walls of text.


But, personally I don't think the ending "broke" the movie.  Sure they could have done without it, but it was laid out to be a chance at redemption for the character Marcus who's only reason for being in the movie was to be a plot device.

[Sunblink]

GabrielThoughts, please break up your MASSIVE paragraph. Reading it is a travesty upon the eyes.

I'm probably not going to see Salvation now that I hear it's such a shitfest, but I thought the teaser trailer was extremely impressive when I saw it during the coming attractions for The Dark Knight. Actually, it was one of the best teasers I had ever seen. Shame the movie apparently sucks, judging by what other critics are saying.

PS: The last ten seconds of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 didn't ruin the movie for me. It made me want to see the next one.
However, I kind of like to pretend the PotC sequels never happened.

[Dannysaysnoo]

Instead of seeing Salvation, I'm just gonna watch the 20 minutes of future footage in the first 2 movies. Hey, it'll probably be better.

[Zedd]

May need to warn you, After this movie..Two more will pop up

The last one being "Mission to get Reese laid!"

[Keleth]

I found the movie was freaking -fantastic-

Sure, I didn't like the ending, but after seeing exactly what happened with marcus and knowing how important John is to the resistance, I could see it as a valid choice he made.

The action sequences were -jaw dropping-, I love how at the same time they made fun of most action movies.

One example comes to mind of ramming a fuel tanker into a giant skynet bot, and then shooting at the can, the most it did was make a hole and it started leaking "It's not working! It's not exploding!"

I found a lot of the character's decisions and actions actually were fairly realistic. And the quaint homeages to terminator 1 and 2 were quite amusing.

All in All, I found I was watching an honest to god Terminator movie, it felt like I was watching T2 all over again. Highly recommended, do see it.