 |
| Directed By: |
| McG |
| Starring: |
| Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Moon Bloodgood, Anton Yelchin |
Reign of Fire (2006) meets Independence Day (2003)
The year is 2018. A self-aware, Philip K. Dick literate super-mainframe called Skynet has reduced the land to a desolate wasteland by way of nuclear holocaust in an attempt to wipe its creators, humanity, off the face of the globe. But we pesky blood bags aren’t so easily extinguished. Our unparalleled survival instinct and unwavering, all-American determination don’t take kindly to killer cyborgs around these parts. Or maybe it’s because Skynet forgot to put the ‘Nuke’ in the nuclear weapons. My neighbor’s backyard looks more post-apocalyptic than this radless future. Man, we can’t even build a decent genocidal computer system, what hope do I have of ever seeing 80 miles to the gallon on my car?
Any part with a Hunter Killer (HK). They're just so cool.
The ending. It's so bad I can't even type right now.
Come with me if you want to hear this line again. 25 years after James Cameron’s original cult classic The Terminator, former Charlie’s Angel’s director and music video visionary McG delivers an explosion heavy fist full of fast-food into the annals of the Terminator-verse. Rather than cash in on the John Connor, savior of humanity lore that was pretty much laid out for them over three movies and two seasons of a T.V. series, McG and Catwoman (2004) writers John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris decided to tell a story about a death row inmate named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). And by story I mean:
BOOM! POW! SPLASH!
“WHAT ARE YOU?!”
BLAM! BANG! BOOM!
“I don’t know…”
SLAM! CLANK! KA-BOOM!
The end.
A bunch of men and women die is various explosions. A man is impaled through the chest from behind. A woman is shot in the leg. Human looking terminators in various states of damage.
We get a CGI enhanced naked terminator with his private parts obscured. A naked man emerges from smoke with parts hidden.
The T-4 Rip-off list (so far): Tron, The Matrix trilogy, Star Blazers, Voltron, Transformers, Aliens, 2001, Mad Max, Men in Black, The Hunt for Red October, War of the Worlds, Batman, Star Wars, Star Trek...
T4 also recreates scenes from all the previous installments that come off more like lazy film-making than homage.