Terminator Salvation Review

I've been waiting for this movie for a while, what with the awesome trailer, my interest in the franchise as a whole, the announcement of Christian Bale as John Connor and the fact that they brought in so many talented writers to help make it.  I wasn't enthralled with McG-any grown man that goes by McG and expects to be taken seriously professionally is asking for it (of course my screenname is mrconceited, so I digress), but I was willing to admit that he does have a flare for great visuals and action.   The reviews had not been great but I decided to see it on opening day anyways and I was not disappointed. 

The last film, T3: Rise of the Machines, was to me anyways, a non-movie in regards to the franchise.  It basically stopped the Terminator story dead in its tracks and didn't advance the mythos at all- nothing new happened in the story, nothing was changed and it didn't really offer anything that say, Charlie's Angels, didn't do better ;)...  It was a great action film, yes, but it wasn't a great Terminator film at all.  James Cameron does action well, but he also does storytelling well, and that's first and foremost what the Terminator story is all about.  Unfortunately, with T2 and eventually T3, Arnold had become the face of the franchise-but the original story and the sequel's story was very much a sci-fi classic storytelling, and Arnold was lucky enough to be included. Yes, Arnold is great in them and he makes the movies what they are, but they could've worked without him and they stand alone as Terminator movies, not Arnold movies (if you get my drift)- i.e. Eraser is an Arnold movie, Commando is an Arnold movie, etc.  Terminator stars Arnold... (I refer to him as Arnold because I cannot spell his last name properly and am too lazy to look it up, even though I probably already could've done it ______________ in the time it took me to make that space....)

Long story short (no pun intended), T3 didn't go anywhere with the storyline.  That's why I appreciated T4 so much.  It really did bring the storyline to the next logical level- and they really went out of their way to focus on the aspect of time travel and time manipulation instead of just blowing shit up.  Make no mistake, there is a lot of shit blown up in this movie, all of which is awesome and very entertaining, but the movie is about something and goes somewhere, and introduces new and exciting characters.  Yes, there are some laughably bad dialogue scenes here and there, and some major plot holes and Christian Bale practically yells the entire movie, even when he's not supposed to.  And besides a few main characters, nobody is even given names or any kind of development.   BUT-I really, Really liked this movie, really enjoyed it and didn't want it to end.  Its just serious enough to really be invested in, but not altogether above being a HUGE SUMMER SPECTACULAR>  Its in a new class of smart, entertaining Summer Movies, with The Dark Knight and Transformers being a few that I would cite.  Go see it, you won't be dissapointed.