Terminator Salvation

We know how merciless, ferocious and relentless they are.

But while Christian Bale’s on-set tantrums are as intense as you’d expect from someone playing the future saviour of mankind, his John Connor is no more important to this fourth Termination than resurrected criminal Marcus Wright (played by Worthington, a hitherto little-known Aussie destined to hit the stratosphere after this, Cameron’s Avatar and the upcoming remake of Clash Of The Titans).

We meet Wright on Death Row back in 2003 as he is persuaded to donate his body to science – or more specifically to Cyberdyne Systems, creators of Skynet – by sickly scientist Helena Bonham Carter.

Fifteen years after his not-entirely-lethal injection, Wright emerges from a subterranean tomb to find Los Angeles reduced to post-apocalyptic rubble and raggedy humans being hunted down by death-dealing androids (the mean but clunky T-600s).

He is given a crash-course in street-smarts by Kyle Reese (Yelchin, Star Trek’s Chekov), a young warrior who yearns to fight in the Resistance alongside his hero, John Connor.

Reese, of course, is Connor’s father. He just doesn’t know it yet. But Skynet knows, which is why Reese is at the top of the hit list. Connor also knows, and unless he finds the lad there will be no future for either himself or anyone else.

To ensure that it’s not all guns and grimaces, the father, son and unholy ghost-from-the-past are given a humanising sidekick: Connor has a pregnant wife (Bryce Dallas Howard), Reese comes with a cute, mute little-brother-in-arms, and Wright gets to snuggle up with a foxy Resistance pilot (the groovily named Moon Bloodgood).

But while religious allegories in the movies are two-a-penny, time travel is a much tougher trick to pull off. So where Cameron’s original twosome tied up the loose ends quite neatly, every sequel opens a fresh set of plotholes and ponderables.

Why, for example, did the Resistance not go looking for Reese as soon as they heard Sarah Connor’s tapes? Moreover, didn’t those very tapes say that Judgement Day would take place in 2004? And who makes the machines that make the machines?

Crushing such issues under a ton of fast-moving metal, Salvation undoubtedly has more to offer than 2003’s makeweight third chapter which was memorable only for being Arnie’s last leading role before he went gunning for government.

McG clearly wants to be taken seriously here, leaving behind the giddy, Barbie-dolls-on-Red Bull world of Charlies’ Angels and clenching his jaw with molar-splintering tightness to present an impressively realised, desaturated, dystopian vision of future.

While his influences are obvious (T4 is covered with the dust of Mad Max, The Matrix, Apocalypse Now, The Empire Strikes Back) and he can't step onto a set without blowing it up, the much-derided director brings some cool moves to the action table.

A helicopter crash is filmed from the inside in one audacious take and there’s an exhilarating, ten-minute thrill ride when Wright and Reese are variously pursued by a fearsome mega-robot, a hunter-killer airship and a fleet of terminator-bikes (TTs?).

Yet Salvation is clearly aimed at a younger audience than its predecessors. The carnage is surprisingly bloodless, there’s virtually no cussing and several scenes were clearly conceived with one eye on the PlayStation.

And call me old-fashioned, but shouldn’t terminators spend more time terminating than capturing old ladies for no apparent reason? Not something for Mr Bale to lose his rag over, but it's worth bearing in mind for the next upgrade.

Because one thing you can guarantee about the machines: they’ll be back.

Elliott Noble