Not Suspenseful + Not engaging and exiciting as Terminator 2
Added 11/8/2009
- The special effects are not as exciting as Terminator 2.
- There's no suspense in this movie. Terminator 2 is suspenseful from the beginning till the end.
- There are a lot of actions but they're not engaging as those of Terminator 2 either.
- It was supposed to be touching at the end when someone scarified to give his heart to another person but I was not moved. I don't know it's because of bad directing or acting. It might be both.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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DVD gets hosed again!!!
Added 11/7/2009
Blu-ray gets a 2 disc director's cut while dvd gets only a pos single disc with only the theatrical cut. Getting tired of having some studios try to shove blu ray down my throat by withholding all good special features and added footage. DVD is still the top selling format. Wish they'd just give us the quality of discs we used to get.
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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DVD EXTRAS? What happened to them?
Added 11/6/2009
I agree with previous posts! I am so tired of them trying to shove Blue Ray down everyone's throats by forcing them to purchase BR instead of DVDs because they are not putting extras, or alternate versions, or even second discs with the DVD versions anymore. I don't own a Blue Ray player and I'm not buying one just so I can watch extras (however the extras are half the reason I buy a movie a lot of times). I'll keep buying regular old DVD's if they have the FULL PACKAGE or I won't buy any at all and wait until they release it with all the extras. It's crap.
I'm in the entertainment industry and I want to see the storyboards, the preproduction, the special effects, hear the commentary, etc. Every time a new wave of movies are released there's less and less on the DVD and they're putting it on TWO blue ray discs (which defeats the purpose of blue ray anyway - it's supposed to hold more and they're putting the same mount of content on 2 blue rays as they did on 2 DVDs). They're just trying to get as much money out of people as they can. It's CRAP.
Overall I enjoyed this movie, but am not happy about the DVD vs. Blue Ray release. Might as well stop making DVD's altogether if you want us to buy Blue Ray so badly.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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not a big fan of the first three
Added 11/5/2009
i was never a big fan of the terminator films
this one was differnt,i really liked its gritty sets etc. its well worth seeing!
check it out!
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Way Out There...
Added 10/31/2009
This movie is way out there... Not sure where they were trying to go with this movie but, I really can't wait till Arnold is no longer playing Governator and gets back to create another actual movie and this one is redone. I was looking to see Terminators such as Arnold, the T-1's (from the original movie,) Summer Glau, and Kristianna Loken's characters in it or at least similarities to them, there wasn't. Only briefly there was a single scene where one of the terminators sort of favored Arnold, even then it was a piss poor similarity to his character.
Outside of these nuances, the overall movie was good, just not a James Cameron movie and it shows.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Good action sequences... pity about the plot
Added 11/8/2009
As a James Cameron, Terminator and Christian Bale fan, I am disappointed with McG's mediocre treatment of Terminator Salvation. While the action sequences are solid and well-delivered, they do not make up for paper-thin character development and flawed story flow. The problem is that, with the exception of Marcus Wright, we simply don't care about any of the characters or the fate of the Resistance. McG hasn't given us much to invest in emotionally and they're little more than minigun fodder. Not having much to work with, the normally excellent Bale is wasted here. This is the shallowest John Connor by far in the series, never being more than a gun-toting, one-dimensional "blunt instrument" of military force, to quote M from Casino Royale. There are bits and pieces from previous Terminator movies sprinkled in here, along with other movies like Mad Max, War of the Worlds, and even some elements that resemble the Matrix's post-apocalyptic world, especially the mech designs. It's still entertaining, but Terminator fans could totally dismiss this version and go on with their lives. This is a superfluous summer blockbuster that brings nothing new to the Terminator franchise.
The "Director's Cut" isn't much of a director's cut. It only adds 3 minutes of brief Bloodgood boobage and more violence from the ensuing fight, not the rumored 30-40 minutes of extra footage that some fans have hoped for, which might've fleshed out the story a bit more and aided in a smoother narrative. The theatrical version is 115 min, the director's cut: 118.
The story begins in 2003 with the scheduled execution of Marcus, a death-row inmate responsible for the deaths of his brother and two cops, but I had a hard time accepting the charismatic, handsome, contemplative, and remorseful Marcus as a killer. We don't know anything about his background or crime, except the feeling that he didn't intentionally kill these men and doesn't deserve to die. At the insistence of a freakishly bald and chemo'd Cyberdyne researcher, Dr. Serena Kogan (Helena Bonham Carter), he donates his body to science. As Marcus receives his lethal injection, the scene blurs out to a text crawl about Skynet's awareness and the extermination of most of the human race on Judgment Day. Then film cuts right to 2018, to the middle of an assault on a Skynet research facility by Connor and his men. From there, it's one shoot-out or car chase after another, with little in the way of character development.
*** WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD ***
I get that the main storyline is about second chances and what it means to be human, but these two threads are clumsily handled. McG doesn't seem to know if this is the story of John, Marcus, or Kyle and Star. In here is the cliched perceptive child mute, akin to Newt's character from Aliens, and a stereotypically callous general (Michael Ironside looking a bit like Jack Nicholson) who cared about victory over all else, even at the cost of hundreds of innocent lives. Some "WTF moments" came with the mech designs, such as the towering Terminator/people harvesters (like War of the Wolds meets Matrix mechs), the robotic serpent Hydrobots, and Moto-Terminators (gun-mounted black chaser motorcycles) launched from the legs of the giant mech. They felt really out of place in a Terminator movie, which has up until now, been mostly a 1-on-1 engagement of single Terminator vs hero. An essential story element is missing here: the strong antagonist. This time, we get 2 heroes (with John being upstaged by Marcus), and no unstoppable new super-Terminator. I also thought that there were an awful lot of people around for a desolate future.
As far as Terminator purists are concerned, the Terminator saga ended at 2, as James Cameron famously stated to the world. No one can replace Cameron (since he and Gale Anne Hurd created the original characters, and it was his creative vision that brought them to life), but that doesn't mean that fans of the series have to write off further efforts to extend the franchise. Though entertaining, McG adds nothing new here, and the ending is especially unsatisfying because it feels like he's taken us in a big circle. The character we care about has to die so that a character we don't care about can live. The humans may have won this battle, but the war is far from over and the ending crawl leaves the movie on a really pessimistic and circular tone, talking about fighting Skynets around the world.
In summary, this is an fun, action-oriented blast-fest with lots of nice CG and thrilling sequences, but very short on strong characters (except for Marcus). Terminator fans and action film enthusiasts will still enjoy it a lot. Just leave your brain at the door.
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Great Action, Good Story
Added 11/6/2009
I liked this movie a lot, but I enjoy the TV series much more. It is easier to follow the time-travel elements in the TV series over the movie T-4.
I thought it was a great way to weave the transcendent mythos of:
a man/not man coming to save mankind, dying or humanity as he gives them his heart to do so.
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One Of The Worst Movies Of The Last 12 Years, Avoid At All Costs
Added 11/6/2009
All these glowing reviews for this one are obviously planted. This movie was TERRIBLE - a huge let down. A Terminator Film with this star power cast should be great, no? It is not. McG (director of Charlie's Angels, creator of The O.C. and Pussycat Dolls) can not seem to be able to get a decent performance from his actors. The film is a watered-down PG-13 - with NO on-screen deaths, and 1 death (off-screen) in the entire film. It's poorly edited, and VERY poorly written as well (writers of Catwoman did this one) - this movie was marketed towards kids, but it backfired and the kiddies didn't care. This film was so poorly received it even sent the company that made it, in it's first film, into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Rent it before you buy it, because you're going to be disappointed and likely agree with me, just like most of the world. By the way - this "directors cut" is only 7 minutes longer than the theatrical version (NOT 40+ minutes, which was promised by the liar McG) - don't waste your money on this terrible, terrible film
5 out of 7 people found this helpful.
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