Rated PG13

Directed by McG (no, I’m not making that name up)

Christian Bale disappoints in this attempt to re-energize the Terminator franchise.

In this movie, Bale plays John Connor, the man leading the human resistance against the machines. The first half of this action-packed movie is fairly entertaining, but as in many movies lately, at the plots halfway point the writers gave up writing a logical storyline, and that’s a shame.

Bale seems like he’s in a bad mood the entire time, which may explain his onset tirade that the made the rounds on entertainment television for months prior the release of the film. Singer/songwriter turned actress, Moon Bloodgood, plays Blair Williams, one of the more vexing characters in this film; her actions are so unbelievable and her acting so painfully bad I think I may have laughed out loud in the theater (if not, I was definitely laughing on the inside).

Australian hunk and virtual unknown actor Sam Worthington gives the strongest performance in the movie, despite being cast next to Bale, who I used to think of as a truly good actor. Worthington plays Marcus Wright, a human who is unaware he’s been turned into a machine.

Despite some very good special effects, the writers fail to hit the mark on this one, and I give it a 2.5 out of 5.