Terminator Salvation review

If watching movies is like eating food, then watching Terminator Salvation is like going to a buffet. I did not plan to see this in the theater, but I gave in to peer pressure. This also sums up how I usually end up at buffets.

The two good dishes in Terminator Salvation are action and special effects. You know you've had it better elsewhere, but while you're here you might as well enjoy the steaming trays of it that are brought in to refill the ones that were just finished. Along with the decent action/special effects the writer/director decide to fry and/or add too much soy sauce to the rest of the dishes resulting in cliched, formula-laden dishes of love, good vs. evil, coming of age, redemption, horror, and references to the earlier movies.

You walk out knowing you've eaten too much ok tasting food and that all the unfinished food will be thrown out at the end of the night rather than going to any of the starving people in the world. You realize you could have spent the same amount of money on a moderately sized, tasty, yet finishable meal at a decent restaurant. You still manage to enjoy the one or two good dishes that were there, but regret piling on everything else that happened to look good but didn't taste nearly as good as they looked.