She's no Linda Hamilton, but at least Moon Bloodgood (yep, that's the actor's name) brings some estrogen to Terminator: Salvation

Termination Time

Of malevolent machines and a badly choreographed spoof

When Arnold Schwarzenegger—in truth, just a digitized version of his face plastered onto a CGI cyborg body—makes an appearance late in Terminator: Salvation, the sudden emotional lift it provides clarifies just how little fun the audience had been having up till then. The original Terminator movies (well, the first two) were popular and effective because, as entertainment, they were literally massive: despite all the dread and violence they had colour, humour, ideas and a bold sense of style.

We’ve now moved to part one of what is supposed to be a new trilogy, where the action has jumped from our present to the post-Judgment Day 20 years in the future, with the Earth overrun with killer machines trying to exterminate what’s left of the human race. A small army of resistance is fighting back, but things aren’t going well. The mood of Salvation is bleak, the colour palette runs from grey to black (with blood and flames offering the occasional spritz of colour) and the action itself, despite a few notable sequences, is mostly a routine war film.

John Connor (here played by Christian “Go fucking fuck yourself!” Bale) has grown up into a brave and resourceful soldier, but finds himself at odds with the supreme commander of the rebel army (who spends his time cruising around in a submarine). Things get a bit interesting with the arrival of Marcus Wright, who has an unusual past and is also the key to infiltrating Skynet headquarters and striking a massive blow against the machines—assuming he can be trusted. And in contrast to all the rugged manliness on display, there is lots of time given to a curvaceous soldier (Moon Bloodgood) with deadly combat skills complemented by some killer cleavage.

The plot to Salvation rarely makes sense, and its logic becomes really annoying in terms of the extended climactic battle between Connor and the “Schwarzenegger” cyborg. In the original trilogy, when different models of cyborgs were fighting each other, they were matched closely enough that the battle could persist. But cyborg versus human? One wallop and Connor—who, let’s remember, is on the cyborg “wanted dead or deader” list—would be snuffed like roadkill. And that, of course, would sound the death knell for any further movies and future profits. But wait! Maybe they could then make a movie about a post-apocalyptic California that is run by a ruthless cyborgian villain known as the Governator . . . .

★ ★ ½

Things become much more flatfooted with Dance Flick, the latest spoof-orama perpetrated by the ever-more-wayward Wayans Brothers. In the good old days when these guys were making cheerfully vulgar parodies of trashy horror flicks they could sometimes really make the audience laugh—if only because they were tossing out so many gags per minute that some of them had to stick.

Maybe the horror genre is particularly appropriate for this treatment, for the Brothers have come up way short in their effort to put the hurt on all the dance movies of the last decade. From Step Up and Roll Bounce to Save the Last Dance—and with slashes in passing at Hairspray, Ray, those “underdog” sports movies and even Superbad—the Wayans take aim at lots of targets but mostly just flail around. Devoid of inspiration, all they do is recycle the typical “girl with a troubled past goes to performing arts school and hooks up with amazing streetwise kids” plotline and rev it up with lots of sexual and racial japes that have shock value to spare but are devoid of satiric interest.

Basically, if you can’t even come close to the level of Mad Magazine then maybe it’s time to get into a new line of work.

★

(Terminator: Salvation continues at the Capitol

and SilverCity, while Dance Flick continues at the Capitol)