Terminator: Salvation. I finally got around to watching it at the weekend and, in spite of my reservations, I really enjoyed it.
Christian Bale was, well, Christian Bale. Brooding looks and super-serious intensity. Kinda what you'd expect. What surprised me, though, was Anton Yelchin as a young Kyle Reese. He really nailed it, and kinda looked like a young Michael Biehn to boot.
The story itself was largely forgettable, and seemed to have completely disregarded the 'Skynet isn't a single entity' concept from Rise Of The Machines, almost as though that film didn't exist (however being that only Kristanna Loken actually made that film worth watching, it's hardly surprising). The same themes ran through this one as through all the other films, which I liked (a Terminator coming to terms with it's Terminatorishness, being one of the 'good guys', and the vagueries of fate and time etc). And a lot of the obscure references made me smile, too. The most hilarious thing, however, was the attempt to model an original 'The Terminator' style Arnie using CGI and what looked like good ol' latex rubber. It was such a fail. The result looked like it should have been on Spitting Image. Having seen a documentary where stunt doubles for Arnie show the fake chins they get stuck on, to give the impression of Arnie's distinctive facial shape... all I can say is that the effort in Terminator: Salvation would have looked more realistic if they'd stuck chins all over its face instead.
Finally I don't like that they didn't use the Terminator theme music, either. But rather an imitation of it with slightly different notes. That theme is iconic.
Oh well. Overall, I enjoyed it quite a lot more than I thought I would.
