I dont know...poor story, bad acting, little character development arent really nit picks. Nothing in the film got my nerd senses wild....the negative ones. But I just felt it wasnt as good as it should've been. The only thing that REALLY works for me is the last 30 minutes. Which were so amazing, and got me pumped out of my mind.
just watched it again. I enjoyed it even more the second time around because I tried to put aside what I already knew didn't work and tried to look for things I missed that did work. A lot of it is very subtle but there are little golden nuggets of depth littered throughout the movie. for instance the first time around I didn't realize the thematic importance of Blair and Marcus and what their relationship did in inspiring John. When he asks her why she helped him she says simply that she saw a human, not a machine. John cuts her loose and then makes his stand against Ashdown and his final radio speech.
The way I saw this was that although John already knew what had to be done, that they could not bomb skynet, Blair helped inspire his words that in turn inspired the rest of the resistance to defy Ashdown's orders. John's words that if they bomb skynet, they will loose the war not only literally or in terms of the time travel paradox, but in an ethical, spiritual sense as well.
There is something 'illogical' about this, its going against Ashdown's pragmatism, just like Blair went completely against logic and, almost impulsively, saved Marcus. That 'irrational' impulse to save another at the risk of one's own life is what the movie tried to put forth as the human condition, the real difference that separates the machines from man. (what's missing here is a development of the way the time travel paradox plays into this)
Although underdeveloped, there were bits of this sort of depth there.
The problem is that we are given (before the last thirty minutes which were fantastic imo) the skeleton to something that could have been really well fleshed out. There was a lot that could have been better, but I was okay with it. Unfortunately I felt like there were too many interesting things brought up and then dropped for sake of explosions and more explosions.
Even action-wise, the introduction could have been done better. I really felt almost nothing when John's entire crew is killed. The suspense built up when wading through the water was ruined, there could have been an interesting 'aliens-esque' encounter there, but it was a missed opportunity.
These are problems, but nonetheless at least we were given the bare-bones of something that could have been really fantastic instead of the bare-bones of something that had no chance of greatness in the first place.
Truly one of the worst part for me about this film was Elfman. The music does so much to put in the human element and emotion during an action sequence and these were the worst I've heard from him imo. The emotional scenes were scored really well and I liked his main theme, but the action sequences felt hollow in large part because of the lack of a riveting score.
Overall, I still think its worthy of an 8/10.
