Blockbusters begin

The sun, and summer blockbuster season has begun in anger. I sat watching Terminator Salvation last night with the warmth of some mild sunburn combating the over eager air-conditioning in screen nine of Vue Plymouth. That’s the biggest screen, which makes the films far more impressive if they’re the blowing things up after a chase or fight type of affair. The new Startrek was good in there, Terminator similar, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen hopefully too, but they’re all a bit too predictable - heavy on the effects and light on the subtleties. And it’s the little things that matter right? The Hollywood bods are trying to cater for everyone at 70%, which is great, but comes at the expense that no one is ever going to love it at a hundred. But it’s probably not as simple as that. Terminator suffered from the plot ‘twist’ being obvious from the first scene – the ‘Cyberdyne systems’ headed paper that Marcus signs makes it clear what his fate is if you’re any sort of a fan of the franchise. And with that removed, there’s not much of a story to get attached to. There was also some really annoying dialog where people stated what was happening on screen just to make it doubly clear what was happening on screen, which I had already got because I was in the cinema watching what was happening on screen. I also struggled with Bale’s voice, much like in Batman, which he seemed to over gruff to the point of sounding like a 40-a-day granddad in some scenes. It was good fun overall though. I enjoyed the nods to the previous films – ‘come with me if you want to live’ ‘ill be back’ and a really eighties looking Arnie were all thrown in, though why Arnie didn’t just crush John Connor’s head instead of throwing him around for five minutes was a bit troubling. There were a suite of new terminators to feast your eyes on, and the action scenes certainly made the most of the big screen. The packed out cinema too, was a testament to the quality of the previous films (T3 excluded, obviously) and luckily enough for the fans, the films seems to have the same traits as the terminators that they depict; just when you thought they were dead, they unexpectedly rise up and come back to get you again.