Sarah’s action aspect is fulfilled, sort of, by a fighter pilot named Blair (Moon Bloodgood), who actually has to pull off her helmet to expose her long hair (an unnecessarily corny and so comic reveal). John has a pregnant partner (Bryce Dallas Howard), a doctor who recites some technical language while holding her big belly and looking wide-eyed as she contemplates the all-bad options facing her lover (of course, she also proves that John does have a penis, in case anyone was wondering). The film, set in 2018, also lacks Sarah Connor or anyone remotely like her. It is just as predictably excessive with regard to action, sometimes flat-out loud and hectic, other times explicitly staged as if rejecting the sheen of the T-1000 (or even Transformers), determined to lay on the grit and grime endless battling for a very sad and angry sort of endurance.
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The movie is predictably short on subtlety, logic, and even a rudimentary philosophy (this being the first two films’ stock in trade, the impossible time-travel looping that made John and Kyle Reese such a compelling one-two punch). Directed by the lead-footed McG, it includes an introductory crawl that recalls the franchise history (when Skynet became self-aware, when it launched its initial attack on humans) - as if anyone reading it doesn’t already know it. Most obviously, it alludes to this fourth film’s many lacks, beginning with lack of faith in viewers. But still the absence - or maybe just the idea of absence - looms. It’s not as if anyone has been hankering for a glimpse of the T-800’s nether parts, actual or prosthetic or CGIed. The shot passes quickly, and it gives pause. His entrance elicits a brief gasp of recognition from the audience, and then, another, as the camera pans up his massive naked body to reveal a chastely blurry blotch where his penis should be. Universey, his gaze intent on his target, John Connor (Christian Bale). And so we all have to settle for a digital simulation of the T-800, smooth-faced and odious as he emerges from a chamber seeping ooky steam, his pecs preternaturally wide and Mr. While the movie’s mid-production buzz machinery had hinted at a cameo, the Governator’s busy real-life schedule made that impossible. It’s late in Terminator Salvation when Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his much-hyped non-appearance.