Series reboot a la J.J. Abrams' equally flawed revamp of Star Trek that takes place before (or after, depending on your viewpoint) the first Terminator, with John Connor (Christian Bale, post light-trashing) and members of the Resistance preparing to invade the robot-infested/anti-human Skynet. Since the plotting and dialogue are vaporous - a few of the line deliveries led me to chuckle, which is not exactly the desired response - McG is actually the director of choice: his action scenes pop with music video-like intensity, with this being nothing more than a string of carefully-timed explosions and shiny black skeletons, fan service ("I'll be back," "Come with me if you want to live," Michael Biehn's Kyle Reese character as a teenager, Guns 'N Roses) and stupidity (in a future full of impossibly complex machinery, wouldn't a more sinister ending involve a very human Conner receiving a Skynet/Terminator heart instead of a still-human one?). Bale's now-notorious on-set freak-out towards perfectionist cinematographer Shane Hurlbut is evident in his comically gravel-voiced performance: he thinks he's doing Shakespeare ... and it's fuck-ing dis-tract-ing.
