Salvation isn't enough to care about

"Terminator: Salvation"
Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin
Grade: D+

The first two Terminators were successful because they followed the following principles: 1. Make your audience care about the characters. 2. Show the audience jaw-dropping effects and action. The latest Terminator just wants to follow the second rule and abandon the first.

Director McG who helmed both "Charlies Angels", and "We Are Marshall," would seem like a decent enough film-maker to director this series re-boot. The man can blow stuff up real good, but the question going into the film was whether he could add humanity and worth to the characters. The answer is hell no, and the film suffers for it.

The story follows the origin of "The Resistance," which is led by John Connor (Bale). The resistance fighters are dead set on infiltrating the computer network Skynet, and putting an end to the machines reign for good. The story also introduces us to new and unique machines that eww and aww the audience.

Upcoming breakthrough actor Sam Worthington plays Marcus Wright. We follow this man throughout the film wondering if hes human or machine. After his re-awakening from being cryogenically frozen, he bumps into Kyle Reese (Yelchin). Reese as we all know is Conner father, the man sent to protect Linda Hamilton in T1. After the audience is caught up with most of the mythology of the previous films, they can concentrate on the actual story, or lack there of. The plot is lazy, watered down, and boring. The characters either aligned with Conner or Wright, walk around, fight, talk, then do the same, something in a different order.

Bale's character shares the screen with Worthington's, who I preferred in this movie. Bale is still saying his lines with a Batman tone, and not sounding human at all. Worthington shows great potential, but the script here doesn't support either men. There are several other characters, none worth caring about.

The action and effects save this movie from being an all out disaster. McG can shoot action, but lacks in directing actors. The pacing is also shallow and without inspiration. Going into the film, I sure didn't expect much, but throughout I kept shaking my head at the dialogue, the plot devices, and the one-dimensional characters. Skip Terminator and see Star Trek again.