Teddy's Theatre Review: Terminator Salvation

Let me set the scene for you. The year is 2003, and Marcus is sitting in a small prison cell. Who is Marcus you ask? I have no idea. In walks this lady, who looks like a diseased nun. She asks the inmate how he is doing? He replies rather tersely, "ask me that question in an hour", it is here that we learn that Marcus is set to be executed shortly for crimes unexplained. It was then that I noticed that the woman with him was Helena Bonham Carter, and boy does she look awful! I guess she has this excuse that she is dying of cancer or something, but come on! Where is that comely lass Miss Honeychurch last seen traipsing across Tuscany? I mean she has really let herself go! Its a shame really, I guess that is so typical of English women, I mean take for example the Queen Mum, she is like what 55, 56 at the most and she looks at least twice that age. Come on British women, shape up! I'm digressing I know. Anyway, Marcus is put to death. Then the scene flashes forward to 2018, where everything is utterly wasted. I guess the machines got peeved and started nuking everything in sight, which means that the landscape is littered with small fires burning on some magically inexhaustible fuel source - you know the scene I'm talking about right? Then in steps John Connor, dressed in the same outfit he was wearing in "Reign Of Fire" although he's not British in this flick. They jump down a big hole and discover a whole passel of humans stuck in cages sort of like in the move "Planet of the Apes" (which come to think of it explains why I didn't know that HBC had gone so down hill - what with the ape makeup and all). Things go badly and all his men are killed, but he manages to escape by shoving a ball point pen in the back of the neck on one of those nasty terminators. So John escapes, but doesn't break out into a rousing rendition of "Santa Fe", which is sad. Then out of the ooze (like some orc being born) escapes our former friend Marcus. Hmm I wonder what thats all about? Marcus later encounters Kyle and his deaf mute friend Moesha. Now Kyle is the 2nd cousin to Reginald. Who's Reginald you ask? He's a guy that Kyle will tell the history of the bad machines to and who will eventually go back in time and introduce Sara's future husband Frank to in her in gym class while at college. This plot gets really complicated I know. Meanwhile the machines have figured out that Kyle must die before he can make the trip back in time to help Frank and Sara meet thus bringing to fruition their love child John, who then would go on eventually defeat those nasty machines. Suffice it to say there are lots of cool chase scenes that follow, including an awesome semi-truck scene that has a tow truck smashing a bunxh of abandoned cars on the freeway and generally making a mess of things. John and Marcus eventually meet, they don't like each other much when it turns out that Marcus has the guts of Lee Majors. They all eventually meet up in SkyNet's sinister headquarters, where the Governator makes a cameo (naked of course, why is he always naked?) I was surprised by this since I would have thought Ahnold would have been too busy bankrupting Cawleefornia to be making movies. Then someone pointed out to me that it was a CG verision of the Governator. I should have guessed this since the Ahnold I saw on the screen had such a depth of character, that it couldn't have been the real actor. The movie ends with Marcus getting punched in the heart so hard that he dies. Fear not dear readers, because John is able to jump start his heart with a couple of bare 220KV wires that happened to be lying nearby - this as it turns out ends up being a pivotal scene as John later.... wait, I shouldn't go any further since after reading this riveting review you might actually want to go see the movie yourself. Bottom line this movie is pretty good, not as good as "Star Trek", but I'm sure its lots better than "Drag Me To Hell". I give "Terminator Salvation" 3 Stars.