6/10

I accidentally encountered so much bad publicity and so many lukewarm reviews in the weeks before attending the movie that I was mentally preparing myself for disappointment and a sulky whinge at the post-viewing luncheon. The trailers looked reasonably good despite the reviews, but as usual, they gave too much of the vital plot away, especially the crass rudeness of revealing that Sam Worthington was a man-machine hybrid.

However ... surprise, surprise ... we all come out quite satisfied with the entertainment experience. MCG’s direction could have turned T4 into a 2 hour long scene-chopping rock video ear-thumping experience like he did with Charlie’s Angels (arguably put to good use in that movie), but he managed to control himself and produce a tolerably coherent movie. Everyone seemed to enjoy identifying the tributes and references to the previous T movies, and to other movies as well (Blackhawk Down, The Great Escape, etc). The links back to T1 were nicely done, with the precious picture of Sarah that Kyle takes back to 1984 and John’s diary tapes that his mother made while driving into Mexico at the end of T1.

As is usual with most modern SF genre movies (T4 and Star Trek XI especially), they have the chance to easily create cult spectaculars that will become loved by fans, but they fail and fall back with too much empty action, pointless character development and superfluous side-plots. There were parts of T4 that were really dark, scary and gripping, like the opening battle at the site of the radio dish array. Ten minutes in with a spectacular nuke, crash and rescue I was on the edge of my seat ... but they couldn’t maintain the atmosphere. The parts of T4 that stuck to the main plot of the war, the technical problems, the resistance, the scarred landscapes, the machines and the direct action were fabulous. When they wandered off into side-plots like the guys in the submarine, the long escape of Sam from John’s HQ, the wasted character of John’s wife (her pregnancy plot was probably left on the cutting room floor), the “romance” between the pilot lady and Sam and the fight with the thugs in the desert, then I was fidgeting in my seat waiting for them to get back to the main plot.

The worst parts of T4 by far were the stupid Transformer machines and robocycle chases. The sound of the gigantic robot and it’s gun were impressive, and reminded me a bit of the similar scenes from the appalling War of The Worlds remake as the machines rise for the first time (best part of the movie). But gigantic walking robots that snatch people, really, pull the other one. That would have to be one of the most inefficient and unstable uses of machine power imaginable. The Skynet city was quite disappointing, looking like the typical Sci-Fi set in an oil refinery. The “control room” where Sam browses the internet was a nice touch, but who’s running that damn place? (Shame he smashed that expensive 200 inch screen, as I could use that for work) As the captives were being led into the holding pens, did you see the silhouettes of mysterious humanoid characters in the upper window? That was interesting. The final hand-to-hand battle between John, Sam and the 2 robots was pretty exciting. The molten metal over the robot’s frame was a nice touch, and as he froze he gave John the distinctive scars we know from earlier movies, a nicer touch.

Best of all ... I had heard that Arnie gave permission to use his face digitally in T4, but I had no idea where or how it would be used. I almost fell out of my seat with surprise and joy when the camera panned back and we saw a 1984 vintage Arnie walk out. As the camera panned up, did you notice that his meat and potatoes were blurred and indistinct? I wonder if it was censored. Can someone examine the DVD in slow-mo when it comes out and let me know? I’m not keen to do it myself.

Other notes: Bale’s growling voice was a bit monotonous. Sam lost his accent slightly a few times and sounded like an Aussie. Most of the music was that dreadful Macintosh generated generic 200 piece orchestra simulation pulp that destroys any atmosphere. Can’t they remember the really edgy scenes in T1 where you just have some murmuring synth or percussion sounds to add tension. You don’t need Indiana Jones style music blasting out in every action scene. Mercifully, there were a few scenes that weren’t “filmed straight and boring” and used some simple production effects such as white-outs, fades, slow-mos, etc to break the monotony of just pressing the On button on the camera.

So, another chance to create a long-lived cult favourite is lost. Can’t these numbnuts learn from 2001, Blade Runner, Alien, Aliens, T1, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, Planet of The Apes, Brazil, Predator, Dr Strangelove, etc? Learn why these movies have stood the test of time, steal the good ideas if you want to, but just make a movie that doesn’t have pointless side-plots, pointless video game action and narrative for dummies. T4 was snatched away from potential cult status (like Star Trek XI) due to simple and obvious mistakes that genre fans recognise.

I gave it 3 stars out of 5, which is pretty kind for me. We all agreed over lunch that we’d watch it again when it came to cheap (certainly less than $20) DVD.

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Some quick geek stuff: The idea that the machines rise up to destroy man is an old one, and it’s the basis for many entertaining stories, but sadly it’s also complete scientific piffle. Machines (computers) do not work the same way as the human brain. Unless humanity finds a way of performing computations in a non-linear way that breaks away from Von Neumann architecture (LINK), there is no hope of ever simulating human intelligence. Even all of the computing power of Skynet combined couldn’t even make a machine walk down the supermarket to buy fresh fruit. Maybe we’ll break the quantum barrier or create organic computers, but I’m not holding my breath at the moment. Sure you could set all programmable machines that exist to the task of destroying mankind, and the most efficient way would be to simply launch and detonate every nuke on Earth. I think that would set us back about 100 million years. But machines wouldn’t do that because they “fear us”, or because they have ambition or hatred, only evolved brains can grasp such concepts.

I was wondering what Skynet would do once it defeated humanity ... create a worldwide robot holiday camp, play chess, keep building robots until the minerals were exhausted ... what? Imagine the robot unemployment and the road rage caused by the billions of heavily armed robots stumbling around the world aimlessly.

Cheers,
Greg

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