“Terminator Salvation” The Beginning of the End

The Beginning of the End

“Hotshots” looks at a movie!

TERMINATOR SALVATION is the fourth in the series of movies beginning with the 1984 TEH TERMINATOR, which started the story of robots taking over society in the future and sending a robot back in time to kill the woman who has the child who will defeat the robots in the future.

That child, John Connor, is all grown up in this movie, which takes place in 2018, and he is played by Christian Bale, most recently famous for his profanity-laced tongue-lashing of a crew member last year on the set of this movie.

The gimmick in this movie is that a robot is sent into the future and ends up helping Connor in his battles against the robots.

He doesn’t start out as a robot, however, but as a prisoner in 2003 who agrees to have his body turned over to the authorities after his execution in prison.

So, when Marcus Wright shows up in 2018, he looks exactly like he did
15 years earlier, except that he has mechanical underpinnings and can heal any injuries to his flesh almost instantly.

The other gimmick is that Kyle Reese, the man who was sent back in time to help Connor’s mother and ends up becoming Connor’s father, is a teenager in this movie.

When Marcus meets Reese and his young partner, Reese says, “We’re the Resistance, L.A. branch.”

Everything has been pretty much destroyed by the robots in what the humans call “Judgment Day,” and the future of the human race looks as bleak as the landscape all around them.

However, Reese is the key to the past and the future, although he, of course, doesn’t know that at this point in his life.

On the other hand, this is all the back story that the audience needs to know in order to understand what is going on.

If you don’t know the background information, then watching this movie can lead you to the conclusion that modern stories don’t have to make sense or be logical anymore. And special effects can allow the filmmakers to do anything they want.

Special effects also allowed them to include a surprise cameo of a guest appearance that builds on “I’ll be back.”

TERMINATOR SALVATION is the beginning of the end, and I’d just as soon hope there won’t be any more.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”