As a terminator fan who was hoping for a revival of the franchise, what a letdown this movie was. Before going in depth about the movie, let's take a look at how this mess was made:<br /><br />Mistake #1) Newbie producers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek acquire the rights to the Terminator franchise. These two goons only have experience producing a low budget flick called "Cook-Off" to their credit and are absolute newcomers to the industry.<br /><br />Mistake #2) Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek, not surprisingly as newbies, choose McG as the director. LOL, McG, the director of Charlies Angels! FFS, you can see where the movie is going now ...<br /><br />Mistake #3) The script is written and McG tries to cast Christian Bale as Marcus. Christian Bale says he wants to play John Connor and not Marcus. Unfortunately, John Connor has a 3 minute appearance in the original script and is not a significant character. At this point, the producers and McG have two viable options:<br /><br />- Ditch the original script with Marcus and write a new one from scratch that explores John Connor's character in depth, if time allows.<br /><br />- Say NO to Christian Bale, and stick with the original script if they are on a deadline. Memo to Derek Anderson, Victor Kubicek, and McG: THE TERMINATOR FRANCHISE CAN SELL ITSELF WITHOUT Christian BALE - STAR TREK PROVES THAT A BUNCH OF NO NAMES CAN SELL A MOVIE IF IT IS MADE WELL.<br /><br />Mistake #4) Oh my gosh! They decide to cast Christian Bale as John Connor and then go on to mangle the script to give John Connor a larger role. The script goes through various hands, and even Jonathan Nolan is brought in to save the script but there is little he can do. They are even trying to rewrite the script on set. FFS, you know a movie is in trouble if they are doing major rewrites of the script on set.<br /><br />Now that we know how the movie was made, here is my review: This movie has great special effects and action sequences. The problem is, it has no character development, the viewers could give a sh*t about the characters, and the story is garbage. In other words, it's the polar opposite of T2. T3 had lots of plot holes, but while T3 was letdown from T2, at least T3 attempted to give more attention to the characters.<br /><br />If all you want is mindless action and special effects, this could be a passable movie for you. If you are a true Terminator fan and wanted a movie that would delve into characters, where action is secondary to the story (ie. T2), this is not the movie for you.<br /><br />Since this movie cost $200 million to produce and so far, the box office receipts are $90 million, there are two possibilities: a) The Terminator Franchise has ended on the big screen. That would be sad but what can you expect with Derek Anderson, Victor Kubicek, and McG at the helm? b) Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek never find the funding for T5 and are forced to sell it to a studio that is capable of making good decisions to make T5 (ie. start by picking a better director other than McG and find good writers).<br /><br />I surely hope it's the latter.