【英语时差8,16】影评：终结者T4（下）（在线收听）

But like all technology, computer graphics are dated the instant you pay for them. Take a dispassionate second look at “T2″ some time. The morphing metal man now looks quaint. Not so when he freezes and shatters, done via a model (Stan Winston again). But in terms of ideas, the series seems to be on a fatal slide. The first “Terminator” delighted in the intricacies of its time travel plot (maybe a little too much; SF writer Harlan Ellison sued, successfully proving that the film ripped off an earlier story by him). “T2″, while it layered excitement upon excitement like cheese upon bacon upon salt upon oil upon French fries, was awfully short on real feeling. The third “Terminator” we can skip. But you knew that. The new chapter works for a while, coasting on Christian Bale’s murderous focus. If this is your first “T” film, that performance will seem bizarre. But consider that Bale is playing John Connor, who grew up an orphan, thinking his mother was psychotic, telling him Armageddon was coming in a year or two and human-looking killer robots would stalk him without end. Bale’s choice, to bring all his intensity to the surface was I supposed one way to make sense of this crazy character, but it’s overkill and a waste of Bale's energy. As much watched on YouTube, it also caused him to explode on set, revealing what a toll it takes on him for this to be his method of choice. Time to broaden out. So “T4″ works best in its opening and middle acts, when there’s very little dialog (”After all,it's better to close your mouth and be thought an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt”). If it had stayed lean to the end, maybe we would have given the film the benefit of the doubt. But in the third act, it all funnels down to a very traditional climax smothered in nostalgia; and when “Terminator – Salvation” opens its mouth to tell you what it’s about, its lack of ideas reveals it as so much less than the sum of its parts.