Ever since Terminator 1 came out a quarter of a century ago, we’ve been waiting to see The Future Wars.  We’ve seen glimpses of it here and there over the course of three movies and heard the characters talk a lot about it.  With Terminator:  Salvation, we now have a whole movie devoted to it.  Now that the filmmakers have gotten The Future Wars out of their system, hopefully they can time travel back to an age where people knew how to make a great Terminator movie.  Now don’t get me wrong, Terminator:  Salvation isn’t a “bad” movie per se.  In fact, I enjoyed a fair share of it.  It’s just uninspired and desperately lacking the magic and fun of its predecessors. 

We know from the first three Terminator movies that John Connor (this time portrayed by Christian Bale) leads the resistance against the Terminators and the evil computer Skynet in the post-apocalyptic future.  Salvation gives us that and very little else.  While Connor is off fighting Terminators, a new character Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) awakens in Skynet’s facility and makes his way to the resistance camps.  If you’ve seen the trailers, then you already know that Marcus is a Terminator.  The catch is, he doesn’t KNOW he’s a machine.  Is he more human than machine?  That’s the one and only existential question the movie harbors.

If you didn’t come for existentialism, then you’ll enjoy the action.  Director Mc (Charlie’s Angels) G serves up a couple entertaining action sequences that mostly work because they’re more or less callbacks to the previous films (you know, the usual tow trucks and motorcycles stuff).  I could’ve done without the Transformer inspired “Harvester” machine which looks downright goofy, but it does blow up stuff real good, which is always a plus.

The biggest thing that stuck in my craw about T:S was the fact that Connor’s story and Marcus’ story really never mesh.  Sure, Connor begrudgingly learns to accept a machine’s help, but John has been letting potentially dangerous cyborgs be his friend since part 2, so there’s nothing new there.  I was surprised that I actually enjoyed the Marcus scenes more than I did the stuff with John.  His story arc is actually kinda interesting.  (The next two sentences contain a big ass spoiler)  Basically Marcus is the Tin Man in reverse:  He’s a machine with a human heart who only becomes “human” after giving it away.

I think a lot of the problem with Connor’s story is that we already know too much about him by now, so there are no surprises.  It’s also disappointing that such a versatile actor as Bale is totally incapable of bringing any spark to the role.  Bale’s acting in this one consists of two modes:  Barking out orders to his men and solemnly preaching over a CB radio.  That’s pretty much it.  We don’t learn what makes him tick.  For all we know, he could be a machine too.

Worthington fares slightly better as Marcus.  Unfortunately he doesn’t really get to shine since his character seems shoehorned in.  Hands down the best performance in the film was Anton Yelchin as the young Kyle Reese.  He effectively embodied Michael Biehn’s persona yet made it his own and whenever he’s on screen, the movie cooks.  Sadly, he spends most of his time locked up with nothing to do.

McG gets a lot of mileage out of using the familiar elements we’ve come to expect from a Terminator movie, i.e. “Come with me if you want to live”, Guns n’ Roses, “I’ll be back”, the freezing of a Terminator, the steel mill finale, etc.  Whenever these moments pop up, it’ll bring a guaranteed smile on your face.  However, McG doesn’t really bring anything else to the table, save for one pretty cool Children of Men inspired shot that takes place in one continuous take. 

Now let’s talk Arnold for a second here.  (Again, skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want the pic spoiled.)  Yes, the Governator is in the movie… for 10 seconds.  Honestly, it’s the biggest cocktease in movie history.  Basically Ah-nuld comes off the assembly line and tosses Connor across the room.  Then John grabs a grenade launcher and blows Arnie’s face off.  Look we all know that Arnold’s face was just digitally superimposed over a body double (Roland Kickinger, who also played Arnold in See Arnold Run) but was the technology THAT expensive that they could only afford to do it for ten fucking seconds!  Seriously, Arnold’s cameo in The Rundown is longer.

Alright, warts and all I could accept Terminator:  Salvation as a dumb summer action flick and award it *** but because of the disparaging lack of Arnold, I have to knock off a ½ *.  Having an (almost) Arnold-less Terminator movie seems downright blasphemous when you think about.  I’m sure you good folks would argue that it’s a Future War movie so it makes sense.  And it does.  That doesn’t necessarily help the movie though.  I mean look at Star Trek 3:  The Search for Spock.  It’s a decent flick, I’ll give you that.  The thing that sucks about it is that it’s sorely missing one of the key ingredients that makes Star Trek work in the first place, which is Spock.  The thing with Star Trek 3 is that you got Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and all the other dudes to pick up the slack.  T:S just has a morose Connor, an earnest but ineffective Marcus, and a plucky but underutilized Reese.  To me Arnold IS the Terminator.  Having him only appear for 10 seconds at the tail end of a 130 minute movie is the very definition of too little, too late.

The original Terminator films were balls-to-the-walls action classics (yes I even love T3).  Terminator:  Salvation is disappointing on several levels yet it still has enough worthwhile stuff in it for me to give it ** ½.  But let’s face it folks, who wants to see a ** ½ Terminator movie anyway? 

To sum up, here’s just a short list of Part 4’s that are better than Terminator:  Salvation:  (And this is just off the top of my head.)

Star Wars (Technically a Part 4)

Rocky 4

Land of the Dead

Rambo

Bride of Chucky

Return to Sleepaway Camp

Citizen Toxie:  The Toxic Avenger 4

Alien:  Resurrection

Thunderball

Star Trek 4:  The Voyage Home

Friday the 13^th 4:  The Final Chapter

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4:  The Dream Master

Live Free and Die Hard

The Substitute 4:  Failure is Not an Option

Lethal Weapon 4

Halloween 4:  The Return of Michael Myers

Death Wish 4:  The Crackdown

Police Academy 4:  Citizens on Patrol

The Devil in Ms. Jones 4:  The Final Outrage

Batman and Robin (yeah, you read that right)

Scary Movie 4

See folks, it’s not THAT hard to make a good Part 4.

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a government agent working with the Witness Protection Agency who “erases” his clients’ identities.  His latest assignment is a corporate whistle blower (Vanessa Williams) who has the goods on some top secret high tech weaponry.  These weapons are so technologically advanced that they have x-ray scopes that can see through buildings and have the firepower necessary (the bullets can travel at the speed of light) to go through said buildings and hit their targets. 

If you’re the kind of person who wonders just how in the heck bullets can be fired at the speed of light, Eraser may not be the movie for you. 

Before too long, Arnold is double crossed by his crooked superior (James Caan) into disclosing Williams’ whereabouts and has to jump out of an airplane without the benefit of a parachute to save her.  Along the way Arnold blows away dozens of people with a very big gun and causes untold millions in property damage in the process.    

Eraser is kind of an unsung classic.  When everyone talks Arnold flicks, they always neglect to bring up Eraser.  No one ever mentions the scene where Arnold dresses up like a ninja and kung fus people like Sho Kosugi.  Nobody ever talks about the scene where a parachuting Arnold plays chicken with a speeding airplane and WINS.  No one ever recollects the scene where Arnie uses a SWAT member as a human shield before pulling the pins on his grenade, tossing him into an elevator and blowing up a half dozen bad guys.  And does anyone remember the great scene where Arnold bursts through the floorboards and guns down a bunch of baddies?  Sadly, no. 

Like most of Arnold’s work, all the action scenes are thoroughly implausible, but their sheer nuttiness is what makes them work.  (Remember those bullets that can move at the speed of light?  Well, Arnold is somehow able to duck and jump out of the way of those bullets.  Does this mean Arnold can move faster than the speed of light?  You’re damn skippy it does.)

Director Chuck (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3:  Dream Warriors) Russell keeps things moving fast and furious and only occasionally lets things slow down for stuff like “plot” and “drama”. 

But oh what dramatics we got in this flick.  The scene where Arnold sits by the fireplace and tells Williams, ”Who you are is in HERE.  And no one can take that away from you!“ is some of the most heart tugging shit the man’s done since the “Oh my God, I can walk again!” ending from Raw Deal. 

Speaking of Raw Deal, this flick also features a great Arnold in a drag club scene too. 

The colorful supporting cast includes James Coburn, James Cromwell and Robert Pastorelli as Schwarzenegger’s comic relief Mafia sidekick. 

Sure it’s no Commando, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t one Hell of an entertaining action flick.  It’s got Arnold blowing things up for two hours and saying funny shit afterwards like “You’ve just been erased!” and “They caught the train!”  The best line of the movie though comes during the awesome scene where Arnie blows away a vicious alligator and quips, “You’re luggage!” 

There are three kinds of Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks:  The classics (Terminator, Predator, Commando, etc.), the comedies (Twins, Junior, Batman and Robin, etc.), and the ones that fall somewhere in between.  Raw Deal lands squarely in the latter category. 

Arnold plays a disgraced cigar smoking CIA agent named Kaminski who now works as a small town sheriff.  After the death of his son, the head of the CIA (Darren McGavin from A Christmas Story) hires Arnold to infiltrate the Chicago Mob and tear it apart from the inside out.  First he blows up a warehouse, then he busts up an underground casino, drives a tow truck through an Italian restaurant, and breaks some bones in drag club.  When McGavin gets paralyzed, Arnie packs his suitcase to the gills with semi-automatic weapons and goes out for some Austrian fried justice. 

Remember that montage in Commando when Arnold gathered his weapons together?  Well this one lasts a full two minutes!    

Anyway, once Arnold grabs enough guns to singlehandedly arm a South American revolution, he cranks up The Rolling Stones and starts blowing away the Italian scum of the universe. 

Okay, so the action isn’t nearly up to par with Total Recall and it isn’t quite as funny as Kindergarten Cop, but it’s still pretty great.  If anything, Raw Deal marks the first time in screen history when Arnold actually tried to “act”.  If you blink you’ll miss it.  It’s the scene where Arnold is mercilessly hounded by his alcoholic wife who throws a birthday cake at him.  You may know Arnold from playing musclebound barbarians, indestructible commandos and cyborgs from the future, but trust me; you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Arnold playing a henpecked husband who says things like, “You shouldn’t drink and bake!”

You want to talk dramatic skills, let’s talk dramatic skills.  Let’s talk about the incredible ending where the paralyzed McGavin is miraculously able to walk.  It’s one of the greatest achievements in Schwarzenegger’s career, if not in the entire history of filmmaking.  (“You don’t have to walk!  You just have to try like Hell!”)  Not many actors can go from mowing down dozens of Mafioso with an assault rifle to PERFORMING CHRIST-LIKE MIRACLES and make it look CONVINCING. 

Arnold also gets to flex his English muscles a bit in the scene where he says, “He molested, murdered, and mutilated her!”

If Raw Deal has an Achilles Heel, it’s the lack of a strong villain.  Arnold was always at his best when locking horns with a worthy adversary.  We’ve seen Arnold tangle with intergalactic alien hunters, liquid metal robots, and psychotic game show killers brandishing flamethrowers, so it comes as a bit of a letdown in Raw Deal when Arnold squares off against… old crusty gangsters.  I’m sorry but after seeing Arnold battle a giant snake in Conan, seeing him go against the geezer from Superman IV is a bit anticlimactic. 

The pacing also gets particularly sluggish about ¾ of the way through, but Arnold’s unmatched charisma carries the flick.  (I especially liked the scene where Arnold gets shot by a bad guy and keeps right on going, which just goes to show that he doesn’t have to play a cyborg from the future in order to get riddled with bullets and not feel it.)  There’s also a handful of familiar faces like Ed (Death Wish 3) Lauter, Joe (Sword and the Sorcerer) Regalbuto and Robert (Licence to Kill) Davi sprinkled here and there to help keep you watching. 

Like any good Arnold movie, this one is brimming with awesome, highly quotable dialogue, my favorite being, “Who do you think I look like, Dirty Harry?”  Thank co-screenwriter Sergio Donati, the man who wrote Screamers, The Chosen and Orca for typing up lines like:  “If you’re the best there is, the wheel would’ve never been invented!”, “You know what I like about bedrooms?  You can always find a bed in there!”, and “I hope you’re not your mother’s only child!”

Director John Irvin later directed the similarly themed Next of Kin.

AKA:  Triple Identity. 

Robin:  “I want a car.  Chicks dig the car!”  

Batman (to camera):  “This is why Superman works alone!”  

The fourth film in the Batman franchise achieves the impossible:  it’s actually CAMPIER than the original 1960’s television series.  Like the show, it’s filled with bad puns, garish colors and isn’t boring.  It’s got a pretty bad reputation, but it’s fascinating to watch in a train wreck sort of way, and is at least more fun than Batman Forever.  This movie borders the thin line between complete incompetence and sheer brilliance.  

What’s more, every single creative decision director Joel Schumacher makes is WRONG!  Have Arnold Schwarzenegger play Mr. Freeze?  WRONG!  Having every line that Mr. Freeze says be either a cheesy “cold”, “ice”, or “freeze” pun?  WRONG!  Ask George Clooney to play Batman as well… George Clooney?  WRONG!  Have Uma Thurman play Poison Ivy as a bad Mae West imitator?  WRONG!  Have Bane, one of the cooler baddies in Batman’s rouge gallery, reduced to being a mindless monosyllabic stooge?  WRONG!  Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl?  WRONG!  Have Batgirl be Alfred’s niece?  WRONG!  (She’s supposed to be Commissioner Gordon’s daughter.)  And don’t get me started on the whole nipples on the Batsuit thing!  

Despite these impossible odds, or perhaps because of them, the movie still manages to be highly entertaining.  I hate to use the cliché “so bad it’s good”, but seriously if any movie was made to fit that cliché, this is it.  

The flick starts out with The Dynamic Duo battling Mr. Freeze in a museum.  “The Iceman Cometh!”  Batman drops in and nonchalantly introduces himself.  “Hi Freeze.  I’m Batman.”  Freeze grabs him and throws him through the air and Batman says, “Whoa!”  (I’m sorry but Batman should never ever say “Whoa!”)  Freeze says, “You’re not sending me to the cooler!” and sends his goons after them.  “Kill the heroes!  Kill them!  Yes!  Kill!!  Yes!  Destroy everything!”  Yep folks, this is the kind of movie where the villains says, “Kill the heroes!”  While fighting Freeze’s ice skating goons, Robin quips, “It’s a hockey team from Hell!”  All I’m going to say about the ensuing fight scene is thank goodness the Batsuit is equipped with ice skates to combat them.  In the meantime Freeze muses, “What killed the dinosaurs?  The Ice Age!” and escapes in his rocket ship.  Batman tries to stop him but Freeze gets the upper hand and captures him.  All I’m going to say about Freeze’s ensuing getaway is thank goodness Freeze’s suit comes equipped with wings (YES WINGS!)  Meanwhile Robin saves Batman from Freeze’s rocket.  All I’m going to say about their escape is thank goodness rocket ship doors double as surfboards.  “Cowabunga!”  

While all this nonsense is going on, Dr. Pamela Isley becomes the deadly Poison Ivy when her psycho rival (John Glover) kills her and she is resurrected as a killer plant lady whose venom filled lips can kill a man with a single kiss.  “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature!”  She then heads to Gotham City with her super strong henchman Bane (Jeep Swenson) in tow.  Meanwhile Mr. Freeze forces his henchmen to sing Christmas carols as he spurns the advances of moll Ms. B. Haven (Vivica A. Fox).  We learn that Freeze must steal diamonds to fuel his freezing suit and freezing gun.  He also keeps his terminally ill wife (Vendela) cryogenically frozen until he can find a cure.  “Leave us!  We need quality time!”  Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred’s niece Barbara comes to stay with him, Bruce and Dick.  As Freeze watches home movies of him and his wife, a henchman interrupts and Freeze freezes him.  “I hate it when people talk during the movie!”  

That night at a diamond charity auction where Batman and Robin are the guests of honor, Poison Ivy crashes the party.  All I’m going to say about the way she gets everyone’s attention is that she does a striptease out of a purple gorilla suit.  She puts herself up for auction and puts a spell on the two heroes by using some love dust.  Batman wins the auction naturally by using his Mastercard (which is good through “FOREVER” by the way).  “Never leave the cave without it!”  Freeze shows up and throws cold water on the sexual innuendo.  “Everybody CHILL!”  Batman however gets the upper hand and apprehends him and Freeze gets whisked away to Arkham Asylum where he’s put in a refrigerated cell.  “You can’t live outside the cold zone!”  

Meanwhile Barbara participates in an underground motorcycle race (run by Coolio).  When she’s run off a cliff, Dick swoops in at the last minute to save her.  Afterwards she confides in him that Alfred is dying.  Back at Arkham, Ivy shows up to spring Freeze.  Bane grabs his freezing suit for him and Freeze exclaims, “A laundry service that delivers!  Wow!”  They head back to Freeze’s hideout where Batman and Robin are waiting.  Ivy uses her love dust to have them fight over her so they can escape.  She also pulls the plug on Freeze’s wife and tells him that Batman was responsible.  Together they concoct a plan to freeze the planet and overrun it with plants, killing everyone else on Earth in the process, except for themselves of course.  “Adam and Evil!”  We also learn that Alfred has the same disease Freeze’s wife has and Freeze is the only one that can cure him.  

Elsewhere Ivy convinces Robin that he’s just as good as Batman and deserves his own signal.  Meanwhile Barbara hacks into Alfred’s computer, learns that Bruce and Dick are Batman and Robin, discovers the Batcave and suits up as Batgirl.  Ivy lures Robin to her lair and tells him her plan before giving him a deadly kiss.  Thankfully he’s wearing rubber lips (Of all the bad puns in the movie I can’t imagine why there isn’t some sort of “protection” joke here, but never mind.) and doesn’t die.  She has her vines capture Batman and Robin and tries to flee, but Batgirl gets the drop on her.  “Using feminine wiles to get what you want, trading on your looks, read a book sister!  That passive aggressive number went out long ago!  Chicks like you give women a bad name!”  She cold cocks Ivy, who yells “Curses!”  

Yep folks, this is the kind of movie in which the villain yells, “Curses!”  

Batgirl then reveals her identity to Batman.  “Batgirl?  That’s not awfully PC.  What about Batperson or Batwoman?”  Batman, Robin, and Batgirl then don brand new silvery suits (obviously a gratuitous toy tie-in) and head down to the Gotham Observatory to stop Freeze from freezing the world.  Batman confronts Freeze and tells him that it was actually Ivy who pulled the plug on his wife, who miraculously is still alive.  He promises Freeze that he can still continue his work at Arkham if he cures Alfred.  Freeze gives him the serum and says, “Take two of these and call me in the morning!”  At Arkham he becomes Ivy’s cellmate, “Prepare for a bitter harvest!  Winter has come at last!”  Back at Wayne Manor, Freeze’s serum cures Alfred, who muses, “We’re going to need a bigger cave!”  

In short:  big budget bad movie jackpot.  

After this flick flopped big time, Warner Brothers put the franchise on ice (no pun intended) for eight years until Christopher Nolan reinvented the Dark Knight with Batman Begins.  Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (who also co-wrote Batman Forever) incredibly would go on to win an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, but you never would have guessed that from such dialogue as “Let’s kick some ice!”  Co-starring Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, Elle MacPherson as Julie Madison and Jesse “The Body” Ventura as a prison guard.