She Likes to Watch

Dark, brooding “Terminator Salvation” stumbles when it tries to be serious

Dark. Brooding. Intense.

Those seem to be the watchwords for a summer movie season bristling with bleak action blockbusters. Some movies, like, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” center on heroes grappling with secretive pasts.  Others seek to plumb the same depths as 2008’s moody mega-hit “The Dark Knight” — featuring characters coming to grips with their own destinies.

“Terminator Salvation,“ helmed by “Charlie’s Angels” director McG, belongs to the latter category. Its plot centers on two tortured individuals — one the future savior of humanity, the other an unwilling tool in its destruction.

Unfortunately, the latest man-versus-machine saga in the “Terminator” franchise seems to collapse under the weight of its own angst– inviting unfavorable comparisons to with the lighter, quicker “Transformers” and the more mature “Battlestar Galactica.“ While action sequences soar, the movie stumbles when it tries to be serious.

“Terminator Salvation” opens with a striking scene: a woman pleading with a man in a Death Row cell.

The man is Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a troubled man awaiting execution for an unnamed but awful crime.

The woman, haggard with a shaven head, is Dr. Serena Krogan (Helena Bonham Carter). She’s dying of cancer. And she needs Marcus’ help — or, more accurately, his body, for a special government program that could save humankind.

He agrees, in exchange for a cold kiss that leaves him musing,”So that’s what death tastes like.” Man. What a way to spend your last minutes on earth.

Fast-forward to 2018, a blighted future in which the last remnants of humanity scrabble for survival. Food and oil are scare. Baths, more so.

Yet a few hearty survivors remain in opposition to mankind’s robotic overlords. They wage an almost daily battle against the vast artificial intelligence system known as Skynet, striking at its research facilities, attacking its aircraft and battling the robotic foot soldiers that guard the crumbling remains of once mighty metropolises.

Who are these fearless freedom fighters, you ask? Do the names John Connor and Kyle Reese ring any bells?

As we’ve been told since 1984’s “The Terminator,“ Connor (Christian Bale)  is mankind’s only hope.

At the moment, however, he’s a mere lieutenant in the resistance movement. In between daring raids on enemy bases, he sends inspirational radio broadcasts over the airwaves and exchanges growls with the equally grumpy General Ashdown (Michael Ironside).

His future father, Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), is a precocious teenager. He and his sidekick, a cute, mute tot named Star (Jadagrace), are the last line of defense in the rotting ruins of Los Angeles.

Connor is desperate to find Kyle, whose very existence guarantees his own. Kyle wants to meet Connor and join the resistance.

Their common solution may be Marcus Wright, who emerges from the Los Angeles wilderness like a latter-day prophet.

Is Marcus a threat? Or could he be the key to saving Connor’s father and setting this time-tangled storyline back on the right track?

“Terminator Salvation” dishes out every manner of gadget and gizmo, from six-foot long robosnakes to riderless motorcycles armed with machine guns to an enormous, nearly indestructible Terminator that looks a bit like Megatron. There are scary aircraft called Hunter Killers and countless copies of the T-700, Skynet’s lethal foot soldiers.

We even encounter the newly minted T800, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first two “Terminator” movies. This robot may possess the features of our beloved Governator but its much-muscled body belongs to Austrian bodybuilding Roland Kickinger. (He also doubled for Arnie in the TV movie “See Arnold Run.“)

The marvelous machines serve as a soothing distraction from the movie’s many gaping plot holes.

Why, for instance, does an enormous bonfire fail to trigger the enemy’s sensitive infrared sensors? Why doesn’t Skynet monitor the radio? How does one acquire fresh, crunchy carrots in the midst of a barren wasteland?

And then there’s this puzzle:

John Connor and his pals discover a complex frequency that shuts machines down cold.

It’s used once to spectacular effect, prompting resistance solider Barnes (rapper-turned-actor Common) to exclaim, “It works, man! The signal works! It’s beautiful!” This amazing device — which can disable an HK in seconds — is NEVER USED AGAIN.

Let’s not even touch upon the “Terminator” series’ constantly shifting timelines.

Batman, er, Christian Bale brings a single-minded rage to Connor, a hard, haggard shell of a man bent under the weight of his own destiny. It’s essentially a one-note performance, complete with anguished lines roared over gunfire and explosions, or muttered huskily over radio transmissions.

Connor betrays little affection for his friends or his pregnant wife, Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard). This makes him strong. It also makes him painfully boring.

Yes, despite his supposed centrality to the”Terminator” franchise, John Connor, Leader of the Free World, is upstaged by nearly everyone — Marcus, Kyle, even Star, the mute little girl with the uncanny knack for picking the right tool at the right time.

The award for “Best Story Arc” goes instead to Marcus Wright.

As Marcus, Sam Worthington puts in a compelling performance as a man tormented by his past and horrified by his cyborg future. Each revelation brings him one step closer to a fate that, like that of John Connor, is unavoidable. Frackin’ skin job.

The Aussie actor’s performance is marred only slightly by infrequent slips in his otherwise foolproof American accent. (Christian Bale, on the other hand, could pass as a Yankee in his sleep.)

Anton Yelchin, recently seen as Chekov in “Star Trek,“ handles himself nicely as a tough kid hoping for brighter days. The rest of the cast — hottie Moon Bloodgood included — is all but inconsequential.

The budding romance between Bloodgood’s character, Blair, and Marcus is restricted to a couple of kisses and this awkwardly cheesy campfire exchange:

MARCUS: Do you think people get a second chance?

BLAIR: I do. (Snuggling closer to grimy stranger) … You’re a good man. You just don’t know it yet.

It’s meant as a serious revelation but in “Terminator Salvation,” such conversations are best conducted on the battlefield over a helicopter’s roar. Preferably while shouldering firearms.

Fact is, “Terminator Salvation” cares far more about mechanical mayhem and explosive action scenes than it does about the petty interactions of weak, puny humans.

In the presence of such cool, cruel machines, can you blame it?

***

Images courtesy of MovieWeb.com.