Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation

So... the first movies that I've seen this summer are Star Trek (2009, dir. J.J. Abrams) and Terminator: Salvation (2009, dir. McG), and I wasn't seriously impressed with either. Star Trek was certainly the best of the two. To it's credit, it's a entertaining and competantly made movie, but those are about the best compliments I can give to it. I wasn't enamored with Chris Pines' performance and I thought the time-travel angle needlessly complicated the narrative. I have to admit I'm slightly biased here, because I'm not a huge fan of J.J. Abrams as a director, and I didn't like Mission Impossible 3. Basically, I find J.J. Abrams directorial style very by-the-numbers... high octane, but still by-the-numbers high octane.

Now... Terminator: Salvation... oh, Terminator: Salvation. I actually thought that this movie was very entertaining at points and I was genuinely engaged by the Marcus Wright strain of the narrative, but this movie had a number of problems. I hate to say this, but one of the main problems was Christain Bale's performance. Technically, it wasn't poorly acted, just poorly conceived. John Connor should a complicated figure, a person who struggles to understand how he is the savior of humanity when he has much frailty and doubt as anyone. Instead, Bale's performance was all gruff, adrenalized fury. I've loved Christian Bale's work in the past-his performances in American Psycho and The Machinist were remarkable-but let's be honest, Bale's serious John Connor voice was exactly the same as his serious Batman voice.

Another problem with Terminator: Salvation was it's own thematic and intellectual simplicity. The film had pretentions of "exploring humanity", but essentially this exploration boiled down a last-minute voice-over where John Conner ponders, "What is humanity? It's not something you can program. You can't put it in a computer chip..." OK... and...? I think the problem with the movie is that the Marcus Wright narrative did raise serious questions about the combination of humanity and technology, but these were questions that were explored in more detail and with more artistry in Battlestar Galactica (I know, I went there).