What we have in this film is the fourth installment of a rapidly failing franchise. We can all look back into the dim memories of the early 80’s and see Arnold Schwarzenegger terminating his way through Los Angeles. But since those mythical times, the Terminator’s tale has become a tired cliché with episodic installments each trying to “out-explode” the last one.

I saw it anyway. And, frankly, I was pleasantly surprised. The plot certainly was not without holes, but it was simple enough to not get bogged down in insulting exposition. There were enough characters to take the focus away from Bale, who, while a fine actor, felt flat and uninspired in the role of John Connor, Savior of the Human Race. In fact, the other characters carried much of the emotional burden of the film.

As expected in the 21^st century, the special effects were excellent. And while I still can’t figure out why, during the final epic battle in the Terminator factory, Skynet didn’t just turn on more terminators (since, you know, one was giving our heroes a run for it), I enjoyed the film very much. Though it’s my own personal bias, I feel I’ve got to pipe up about Time Travel. In a nutshell, it’s can’t happen. Information as we know it cannot travel faster than the event that caused it. No effect then cause. So why can’t Hollywood drop the Jack-Tripper Time Travel Trope and invest just a few more seconds into their writing? I know time travel was an integral part of the Terminator plot, and wasn’t so much so in Terminator: Salvation, however, John Connor was well aware of the potential for paradox and based his actions on that knowledge. Yawn.

The action sequences were top-notch and I think we can all agree that bringing more hardware to bear on the Terminator problem is exactly what we needed to do.