My take on the Summer Blockbusters

Terminator Salvation

Director: McG

Theatre visits: 2

What’s it about: A continuation of the Terminator story, set in a war-torn 2018, with a grown up John Connor and the Resistance fighting Skynet’s robot army. Contrary to expectations, Connor isn’t the decision maker of the Resistance fighters, but one of the lead soldiers. The appearance of Marcus Wright, a drifter who goes on to do his part in the war for humanity’s survival, forms the core of this post apocalyptic action fest. The android-human relationship comes into play and the question of making choices is a major theme followed.

Whistles: Sam Worthington’s Marcus Wright, the post apocalyptic world, the gritty realism in the frames, excellent sound design, cinematography, exceptional production designing, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cameo (though it was CGI), the terminator machines (especially Mototerminator), Christian Bale’s aggression as John Connor, the twists and turns (a bit predictable but delivers).

Boos: Christian Bale’s performance looked similar to his role as Batman in TDK, the death of Sam Worthington’s character, human element subdued a tad.

Verdict: Excellent effort from McG. Makes it hard to believe that this was directed by the same guy who directed Charlie’s Angels and its sequel. Regardless of its failure at the box office, I think this is a better movie overall when compared to the other robot actioner, Transformers 2.

Sequel Suggestions: Reduce the budget to $150 million, take some consultation from James Cameron, bring back Sam Worthington and send Christian Bale to an anger management class. The dissemination of the audio file of his verbal assault was one of the reasons why the movie’s popularity nosedived.

Remarkable action movies : Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Why : Too much philosophy didn’t mar Wachowski brothers’ second movie in the Matrix trilogy of its additional selling point – breath-taking action. The Matrix introduced us to revolving cameras, strobe effects, bullet times, detailed slow motion, cutting edge special effects and a fine display of Wire-fu.

Reloaded took all these to the next level. This was the perfect action movie as it had the best of every genre of action. Martial arts, shootouts, car chases, explosions, guns, knives, swords, cars, characters with real purposes for their acts, visual effects and all packaged into a coherent unit with a strong plot.

The most memorable moments include Neo’s one-man battle with hundreds of copies of Agent Smith and the $50 million dollar car chase which was shot on a specially constructed freeway. Trinity racing against the traffic on the Ducati superbike was an armrest grabber in all rights. Neo took to the skies and beat Superman in the frequent fliers race.

The movie had a huge impact on popular culture and film making. The cinematography style is still a favourite among directors. Same goes for the all-black costumes. Black became the most desirable colour for dress code. Black shades, black tux, black shoes and special edition Neo goggles sold like pizzas. We haven’t seen a movie creating a fashion statement like this in recent times and it still goes on.

The Matrix was a better movie, but Reloaded was a better action movie.

Remarkable action movies : Speed (1994)

Why : Speed infused tension, action and fear into the most common part of urban life - boarding a bus.

A Los Angeles citybus is rigged with a bomb which will tear the vehicle apart if any of what follows happens. If the speedometer needle goes anywhere west of 50mph, the bus blows up. If anyone tries to get off, the bus blows up. Dennis Hopper’s insane of a villain didn’t mention the clause, if anyone tries to board the bus, the bus blows up. May be he was counting on the the prospective hitchhiker's fear of death. But that didn’t stop Keanu Reeves from getting onboard and what followed was action movie history. Sandra Bullock’s spontaneous act was an absolute delight. Jan de Bont’s directorial excellence was evident in retaining edge-of-the-seat thrills till the moment the bus explodes. Let us choose to forget the concluding moments in the subway.

The movie won Academy Awards for Best Sound and Best Sound Editing and the producers laughed all the way to the banks to count the $350 million it made at the box-office. Its sequel was a dud, though.