Why Terminator Kinda Half Flopped

Terminator Salvation Analysis

In lieu of doing the typical review, I’ve decided to approach Terminator Salvation from a more analytical angle, in terms of its relative success as a summer tentpole film (also doing this because I only just saw it, so a typical review would be pretty late at this point).

Boxofficemojo currently has the film at $121 million worldwide, not bad for most big movies, but for the supposedly $200 million budgeted (again from Boxofficemojo) Terminator it’s disappointing.

So what gives?

Film Quality

Terminator Salvation has a very straightforward story for the most part, which is definitely a hindrance as it drags significantly for the majority of its runtime.

Also not helping is the characterization of Christian Bale’s John Connor as a one-note intensity machine. He kisses his girlfriend, that’s about it for personality. In films like The Prestige and the Batman films he’s gotten to have two distinct sides, usually one a gentler or smoother side and then the “John Connor” side. Here’s he just has one side, for the overwhelming majority of the film.

The action is mostly run-of-the-mill with one BIG exception, a fantastic 10 minute or so setpiece involving an exploding gas station, motorcycle chase, and transport ship attack.

It’s breathless and creative, the camera actually stays still long enough so you can see what is going on, and the innovative future technology is used to create original action.

It’s probably the best action scene of the year. Shame it’s in this otherwise mediocre movie.

Also worth noticing is Sam Worthington [Minor Spoiler] as soldier/cyborg Marcus Wright, giving the type of star-wattage, brooding performance that got fellow Aussie Russell Crowe noticed.

Critical Reception

It was surprising to me that Variety and The New York Times are listed in Rottentomatoes as giving Terminator Salvation a good review, because it generally got pretty bad reviews.

At 34% the critical consensus on the film at RT was “With storytelling as robotic as the film’s iconic villains, Terminator Salvation offers plenty of great effects but lacks the heart of the original films.”

That’s fair. The negative reviews may have scared off adult filmgoers.

Box Office Competition

Terminator opened opposite the second Night at the Museum, hardly the same audience.

But the more telling story lies below, Star Trek made $22 million that weekend, and Wolverine took in $8 million. So that’s $30 million in competition that could have hurt Terminator‘s opening.

And in the crowded summer season if you don’t open big, you can sink hard amidst the big competition.

Terminator opened with $42 million over its three day weekend, okay but not killer by summer tentpole standards.

The next weekend Up, a four-quadrant picture (everyone sees it, across ages) and Drag Me To Hell (takes away teenagers) opened, both critically acclaimed. Terminator dropped a steep 61% to $16 million.

And that’s probably all she wrote, the film will be lucky to finish out its run in the $130 million range and will need to do well overseas to even make back its budget, much less the massive marketing costs likely associated with the product.

So what have we learned?

Sometimes, quality really does matter. That’s my best guess here.

-Dan Benamor