Terminator Salvation, the latest in the line of the Terminator movies and (cancelled) television series is an action-packed, revealing movie within the Terminator timeline. The movie follows John Conner, whom throughout the movie listens to the tapes left behind by his mother as the Sarah Conner Chronicles television series depicts the recording of, as he fights to take down a Skynet complex and locate Kyle Reese.

The role of John Conner is played by Batman: The Dark Knight’s Christian Bale, whom once again gives the lead role an overly raspy voice as he did to Batman in his previous film. While not quite as bad as he did in The Dark Knight, I found the horrid vocalization to be annoyance throughout the film, which seems to peak during crucial speeches given by Connor. Other than the overdramatic voice, Bale played the part of Conner well.

The storyline itself creates more of a bridge between the plots of where the Sarah Conner Chronicles left off, and where the first Terminator films began. A CGI rendering of Arnold Schwarzenegger reprises his famous role of the Model 101 T-800 near the climax of the film (albeit without dialogue), and the overly-angry render of his face made everyone in the theater with me bust out laughing, including longtime Terminator fans.

The action of the film will be all-too-familiar with Terminator fans, as the film continues to deliver the fast-paced, mind-numbing action sequences we all love, while also taking the time to provide insight into the events leading up to the final climatic battle and filling in more of the Terminator storyline.

One thing of interest within the movie are the subtle references within it to other works such as the Apple Macintosh commercial (1984) and Schindler’s List, referring to the scene with Marcus within the Skynet control room and the scene showing the prisoners’ arrival at the Skynet complex.

In addition to these allusions to other media, the film contains product-placement advertising, especially via the usage of Sandisk Cruzer flash dirves within the film by the heros. These are minor annoyances, but are none-too-obvious even to the casual viewer.

Without giving away too much plot information on my part, I can say that the film reveals more about the gaps in the Terminator timeline created by the television series and the other movies. The ending of the film is still very open-ended, leaving the possibility of more Terminator movies to come in the future, unless somebody decides to cancel those as well.