The George Michael Ironside Effect

Terminator Salvation
Nothing… But Skynet
Trailers & Mo | Official Website

Terminator Salvation is a video game disguised as a 4th rate James Cameron movie, that looks like Mad Max battling the Transformers, which should not be confused with Mad Rex vs The Transmorphers, and ultimately is a clumsy, herky-jerky eggscuse for an extension of the franchise that no one was really asking to be extended. Twas the same story for T3 and that Fox TV show that juss got axed, so however you feel about those, you’ll probably feel the same for this latest big screen misadventure. It’s not at all bad, cause how could robots with evil red eyes shooting guns at people be boring, but then again, it’s not anything you’ll be reminiscing about for years to come, let alone weeks, let alone the day after. Salvation is fittingly directed by McG, who’s well at home in the world of harebrained shoot em ups (Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle still stands as one of our moist flavorite guilty pleasures of this decade) and short attention-spanned music videos (he helmed every single one of Sugar Ray’s + many other ‘fun’ bands)… although his We Are Marshall was totally lovable (Matthew McConaughey needs more movies like that, and less of ones starring Kate Hudson). Anywho, his direction is fine (and so is the acting), and it doesn’t stand in the way of the movie’s real problem: the plot… as in, what plot?

OK, here’s how it goes (don’t read if you don’t want to know how basic and sparse the plot hactually is): a bad prisoner dude (Sam Worthington, who we called ‘a mulleted Pierce Brosnan’ in our review of the Abbie Cornish game hen pic Somersault) donates his body for future use and then one day wakes up in the future and the future is not like the past cause it’s the future and it’s post-Judgment Day (bi the gay, when are we ever going to see a Terminator movie about the actual Judgment Day itself, with endless mushroom clouds and mushroom pizza? gr8 point OviWani!)! He meets a young KYLE REESE!! (Anton Yelchin, being ruff and tuff for once, and makin it believable!) and a faux-Newt (Jadagrace, the first black child actor to appear in a big budget film over the past 3 years that isn’t one of Will Smith’s kids). They try to run away from the robots with guns, but it’s hard cause they’re robots with guns. The robots catch up with them and take Kyle and faux-Newt as prisoners back to Skynet HQ. The dude heard John Connor (Christian Bale in full unhappy mode) on the radio talk about how today’s robots aren’t as cool as Daft Punk and so he sets out to find him. He does, with the help of yummy Moon Bloodgood, and then talking happens, and more talking, and some punches and stuff and then Bryce Dallas Howard tends wounds and then Common makes little sense. John Connor sez they have to go to Skynet to save Kyle Reese, but resistance leader Michael Ironside (in a submarine for no reason) doesn’t want to save anyone, including this movie. You can probably guess where it goes from here (the movies don’t revolve around Michael Ironside and whatever he wants to do), and that folks, is the whole movie. Maybe Saving Private Reese woulda been a more apropos title. Roll credits. Oh yeah, we forgot to mention Helena Bonham Carter is Big Brother and there are some motorcycles that are kinda like those Star Wars‘ droidekas. and morer importanter…

Overuse Your Illusions: The Governator does indeed make a cameo, well sorta, since about 98% of ‘him’ was 1s and 0s (they imaged his face onto this guy’s body). alas, the bestest cameo, and perhaps bestest part of the whole movie was the use of Guns N’ Roses’ T2 classic theme ‘You Could Be Mine’ (to this day, we’re still trying to finger out what ‘bitch slap rappin’ and a ‘cocaine tongue‘ have to do with the annihilation of man by machines). anywho, tis quite sad that Earl Boen, who appeared in the first three Ts, wasn’t able to make it 4 times a smarm

Verdictgo: Sum Merit But No Stinkin Badges

T4 opens at a theater near jews today… yes, on a Thursday, which is totally sweet and we hopes Hollywurst continues to release shiz a day earlier than usual cause it rox more than Brian Cox licking his own coccyx

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…