There is an exchange in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me where Austin quizzes Basil Exposition on the paradoxes put in motion by time travel, conundrums so perplexing Austin gets cross-eyed thinking about them. Basil pats him reassuringly on the arm and says don’t to worry about such things; just sit back, enjoy the ride and have a good time. Then he looks straight into the camera and says to the audience, “And that goes for you all as well!”This is probably the best way to experience Terminator Salvation. It is not a bad movie; it delivers, and then some. The action sequences, while not anything you haven't seen before, are fantastic, the CGI is impressive. And standout among an excellent cast (including relative newcomer Sam Worthington, who gives a great performance) is Jadagrace Berry, who manages to steal every scene she's in despite not having a single line of dialogue.But… Despite a complete rewrite of the original script by Paul Haggis (Unforgiven, Crash), “tweaking” by Anthony Zukier (creator of CSI: All of Them), Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield, co-creator of The Unit) and on-set rewrites by Jonathan Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight)…it's just a B movie with A+ production values.The classic B movie was a “low-budget commercial motion picture conceived neither as an art house film nor as pornography.” The B movie, in its heyday in the 1950s, was the bottom half of a double feature. It did not get the publicity (or the stars, writers, directors, etc.) of the A list pictures. You were never supposed to take it seriously. Yet by the audience reaction to the trailers for Land of the Lost and the Transformers sequel there are people who take these movies very seriously. That, or they just don’t care. They want to be entertained, not engaged.
Of the (now) four Terminator movies, three had basically the same plot: Something wants to kill me; I have to kill it first. And save the world. Only the second movie (arguably the best of the series) concentrated more on the cost saving the human race exacts on the savior. Salvation could have explored that cost; in fact there was a single line of dialogue that pointed in that direction. But then they went on to something else and it never came up again. Perhaps, having used up all the crowd pleasing moments in this one, the filmmakers will be forced to come up with a better story for future sequels. In the meantime, just sit back, enjoy the ride and have a good time.
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