Resistance reborn - Military Movies - Military Times

Resistance reborn

Just a few weeks ago, the grand and glorious “Star Trek” gave a steel-toed reboot to the butt of that beloved but timeworn brand and got Trekkers and Trekkies alike as fired up as drunken Klingons on shore leave.

So surely it was too much to hope that “Terminator Salvation” could pull off an equally spectacular resurrection of the fritzing neural net processor of that iconic but moribund series.

Especially with a director who goes by the too-pretentious moniker “McG.” Especially when it’s the first PG-13 entry in the series — a big, craven smooch to the young-teen set.

But cybernetic sycophants can rejoice: “Terminator Salvation” is one of the most visually and aurally intense flicks I’ve ever experienced, a nonstop rocket ride into the blazing belly of the Judgment Day beast.

In finally plunging into the deep end of the post-apocalyptic holocaust that has been only briefly glimpsed until now, McG and writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris — the same duo that collaborated on the unfairly maligned script for “Terminator 3” — go to the story’s very roots.

It’s 2018, and the conflict with the machines is not going well for humanity’s dwindling warriors.

Although John Connor (Christian Bale) is growing in stature within the Resistance, he’s not yet top dog; he still takes orders from humanity’s mobile, multinational command post, led by Gen. Ashdown (B-movie veteran Michael Ironside), aboard a sub that stays perpetually at sea to elude Skynet’s roving eyes.

The war is at a turning point; the Resistance has found a specific frequency signal with devastating potential. “Skynet is a machine — and every machine has an off switch,” Connor notes.

This hopeful development leads Humanity Command to plan an all-out strike on Skynet’s core U.S. facility — even as signs emerge that Skynet has begun harvesting humans for some insidious plan of its own.

Things get complicated in a hurry when Connor learns that one harvestee is a youngster named Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) — who Connor knows will grow up to be his father.

If Reese, still a young pup and not the hardened combat vet of the original “Terminator,” dies in 2018 — before going back in time and impregnating Sarah Connor — will John simply cease to be?

You’ll have to iron out the new timeline wrinkles for yourself. As Linda Hamilton said in the original: “A person could go crazy thinking about this.”

The story takes another hard turn with the appearance of mysterious stranger Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), who claims amnesia and may be some kind of Skynet sleeper agent.

All three leads serve up grittily effective performances. The appealing Yelchin is on a roll, having stolen a couple of scenes as young Chekhov in “Star Trek” and now starring as Reese.

Worthington evokes surprising depths of sympathy as a man with no past who learns that he harbors a horrifying, mind-blowing secret (the groundwork for which is laid in the opening scene, a prologue set in 2003).

And Bale is about as hard-core as an actor can get without popping a brain aneurysm.

It was during production of this film that some poor set flunkie walked into a shot and ruined a take, prompting Bale to go off his nut and into a profanity-laced tirade that was caught on tape and quickly went viral.

Without condoning or excusing that foam-flecked rant, I think I can understand it now. Bale’s an intense guy to begin with, and his character here is even more so — after all, Connor is in ascendance as a warrior-prophet on whose shoulders will rest the fate of the human race. Under that kind of pressure, you’d be wrapped a little tightly, too.

So it’s not hard to imagine this kind of actor, “in the moment” in this kind of role, teeing off on someone who ruins a take.

Of course, the main draw isn’t the actors, but the action — and it’s as superb as it is relentless. Loads of CGI, of course, but it’s seamless, cutting-edge stuff.

Highlights include a dizzying dogfight between a Skynet Hunter-Killer and a pair of venerable A-10 Warthogs; a panoramic view of a devastated Los Angeles; a 50-foot-tall Terminator on a rampage; a hair-raising hand-to-hyperalloy death match; and a richly imagined and creatively drawn scene inside Skynet’s “brain.”

All this and a too-brief cameo by an old pal ... sort of.

Uh-uh, no more hints.

Tough to see where we go from here (although “Terminator 5” is already in pre-production), but that’s a concern for another day.

For now, action-movie fans should revel in the full-bore, battle-rattling “Terminator Salvation” as it blasts out two hours of sledgehammer thrills — while also finding a few quiet pockets amid the mayhem to delve deeper into the question that underpins this entire story:

What does it really mean to be human?

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Rated PG-13 for intense battle action (but very little blood). Got a rant or rave about the movies? E-mail Chuck.