Movie Review: Terminator Salvation « Valerie Atherton's Playground and Intellectual Dept.

To some, California is the Golden State. To others, it’s the state that is cool and has famous people. To the robots and people of Terminator Salvation, though, it’s a gigantic battlefield.

Christian Bale Walks Into A Robot Room. Awk-ward!

Terminator Salvation takes place in California in the near distant future. Before anyone gets excited about seeing the beaches or the tans of the future, be warned that the California in this movie is not a cool place, at all. Both San Francisco and Los Angeles have been destroyed by robots who apparently have no intention of ever cleaning up (what’s the point of taking over a city and just letting it look gross?), but are determined to build more robots…to destroy more stuff…stuff they don’t actually care about. Between these two cities, California is just a big desert that people use to abandon their cars in. If this is future California, I am moving inland to Missouri or Oregon or Iowa.

Christian Bale Tries To Pet A Robot While It Is Sleeping

The plot isn’t too hard to follow: robots and people hate each other. It’s never really discussed why they hate each other, just that they do.

Beside from that, there are stories beneath the main story. Christian Bale (of The Dark Knight) plays John Connor who is an army guy of the future who is very tough, but also very angry and very sad. He’s angry because robots are winning their war for California and capturing people to use as cows (i.e. food). He’s sad because he never met his dad. He talks to his mom who sends him cassettes instead of letters (apparently, in the future, they don’t have email [?]) and she tells him about his dad whose name is Kyle Reese. This actually was very bittersweet because Mr. Bale wants nothing more than to have a dad that he does anything he can to have any sort of connection to him whatsoever. When Christian Bale learns that the robots have captured a Kyle Reese, he assumes it is his dad, but finds out it’s just a kid with the same name. Nevertheless, he wants to save the boy from being eaten, so he goes to save him.

Me Hate Humans! Grrr!

Other parts of the movie can get confusing, though. For example, Christian Bale makes friends with a man who is an ex-con and whose ex-girlfriend is actually a computer for the robot side. Huhhhh?

You Think They Might, But Then They Don't. Biggest Tease In The Movie

Ostemcellably, this movie is an action movie, so most people don’t expect to find much hidden meaning hiding anywhere, but this movie seems to have a lot to say without cramming it down the throats of the movie audiences. Firstly, between the robots who have demolish stuff and the humans who leave their stuff everywhere, future California is a big mess, literarily! So, unless we clean up, California’s going to be a lame place to live. Oh, I think a lot of people might think it random, but the cameo by Governor Schwarzenegger was so appropriate. Who better to help save the future California than the governor, right? He’s only in the movie for a minute, but, OMG, he is in such amazing shape! Unfortunately, he gets killed by Christian Bale. Why? Well, because technically even the governor is a “robot”. *SPOILER*

Clean Up On Pretty Much EVERY Aisle

This brings me to the second topic the movie hints at and, quite frankly, it’s not a pretty one. It shows a very dark side to Mr. Bale that, kinda like hearing an ugly friend talk about making out with their lame boyfriend, I’d rather not know about. On the surface of the movie, the humans don’t like the robots. Okay, but what are robots used for? Work, exactly! So, this movie is also about how humans or “native Californians” are worried about getting “taken over” by foreign workers or “robots”. Puh-lease! Really, Mr. Bale? Are you really worried about a “robot” doing the manual labor jobs you don’t even want to do?! These so-called robots only want to live and earn a living and raise little robots, but the “humans” would rather side with ex-cons than be friends with “robots”. I kind of hope that in the next movie, that the robots go on strike or something. That’d be amazing. In my opinion, equal labor rights would be the real salvation for the robots.

Will Work For Batteries

I don’t honestly believe Mr. Bale is a prejudiced racist or anything, I think that he just doesn’t understand that America is made up of all sorts of people whereas he comes from Britain’s England, a country that only has white people. For all I know, maybe ultimately Mr. Bale is setting this all up as a way to ultimately make a positive statement and I’m just jumping over his gun. Sorry if that is the case.

Yummy yum yum

Side note: Despite not agreeing with his politics, I still have to admit that Christian Bale looks handsome as always and the guy playing the ex-con is very sexy. There was one scene where I was hoping the two would actually kiss, but no luck. However, both actors are incredibly drool worthy, so much so that this movie should have been called Terminator Salivation.

I give Terminator Salvation 4 out of 5 winks.

Valerie Atherton's Playground and Intellectual Dept.:

Movie Review: Terminator Salvation

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