[Captain Walrus]

I did quite enjoy it, but it seemed a bit confused about what it wanted to be. Did it want to be a war film, a Terminator film, a Matrix film, or a futuristic version of Pinocchio? Did it want to have John Connor as the main character, or Marcus Wright? Did it or did it not want to show the post-Judgment Day world as the previous films displayed it?

Let me follow up on that last point a bit .... the whole film seemed to function just as a transitionary step between the original trilogy and a forthcoming film series. It didn't show Judgment Day, and it didn't show the post apocalyptic world which we had seen in the previous films (which was clearly a place where the series had to go eventually, and is what everyone actually wants to see) .... it just showed something between the two. I just couldn't help but feel that this wasn't a particularly important enough chapter in the Terminator mythos to actually warrant a film (if such a thing makes sense, seeing as the films create the mythos, but I know what I mean).

I did think the post-apocalyptic feel was well done, but let's face it ... when we heard there was going to be a Terminator film set after Judgment Day, we all envisioned it as being blue tinted, dark, and with lasers, didn't we?

Plus, I'm not the biggest fan of war films, so I'll admit, the first half dragged a little for me.

Also, the plot holes were so wide you could drive a bus through them. Can someone explain to me just how in 2003 anyone knew that 15 years in the future, a robot/human hybrid would be needed in order to destroy John Connor, who no one had ever heard of by that point?

Heh, all of that sounds incredibly negative. But I do have to admit, the set pieces and effects were fantastic, the acting was generally believable (although Bale did have a tendency to overdo his voice, a la Batman), the post apocalyptic atmosphere was well captured, the action sequences were impressive, and the Marcus Wright plotline added an extra dimension to what would have otherwise been a very straightfoward story. Overall I'd probably give it somewhere around the region of 7 out of 10