Sunday

The problem with Terminator Salvation is more than just the lack of Arnold Schwarzenegger (although he does make a semi-appearance in the film). It is more crucially that the movie breaks the fundamental model of its three prequels: a contemporary setting in which terminators (or a man) are sent from the future to protect or kill members of the resistance. The movie almost has to be judged as something new, separate, from the other three, as it develops its own paradigm, avoiding the of set-pieces of its prequels. It's a strange move. The whole point of a franchise is to continually play on the clichés of the original. They have avoided them almost completely here. The plot is perhaps too complicated. Yes, there are terminators, and the general mythology of the previous films is intact, but that isn't the point. This is a fundamental break. Perhaps, though, that was the only thing that could be done? After all, Terminator 3 brought us to the end of the contemporary era with the beginning of nuclear war. What we have in this fourth film is a wasteland run by computers, much like The Matrix. There are a lot of similarities (once again, the creators felt the need to give the computer a human face, even though it wouldn't have one). It's fairly good fun, easy entertainment, but what this movie really emphasised for me was the astonishing originality of the first Terminator. There is already talk of a fifth film.