Last Saturday, we saw that Marcus, a death row inmate, sold his body before being executed and woke up in the future— well, 2018 anyway. Meanwhile, John Connor has discovered a signal that might destroy Skynet once and for all.

But there is a hitch: His robotic nemesis has put out a kill list, and one of the names on that list is Kyle Reese, John’s future father, who will meet his mother in the past… Have I mentioned how much time paradoxes annoy me?

Marcus needs a car

Anyway, guess who Marcus meets after waking up in the future—that is now the past since this future takes place in 2018. Kyle Reese. It was neat to see him as a younger man, but I do have to launch a couple complaints.

First, to point out the obvious, the odds of Marcus meeting Kyle in a post-apocalyptic landscape are next to zero. I know the plot needs to happen, but this is lazy. Unlikely meetings in movies irritate me every time I see them. Second, from here on out, the viewer can consider the kill list a dropped plot point. It does have some relevance from a bad writing perspective, but I won’t get into that until later reviews.

When Marcus meets Kyle, he asks for a car. Kyle knows where a few of them are located, but none of them work. Marcus doesn’t seem to be worried about this, and the two agree to go to an abandoned parking lot the following day. During the night, Marcus fixes Kyle’s radio, and the two men hear a broadcast from John Connor. Connor is hoping that Kyle will hear him so he can locate his future father before the machines do. Kyle says they should try to find John, but this is yet another dropped plot point.

As an aside, there’s also a kid called Star traveling with Marcus and Kyle, but since the writers took the saying “children should be seen, not heard” literally, she really isn’t worth mentioning. I’m serious. The kid is mute and does almost nothing throughout the film. I’m not sure why she was there.

Battle with a scouting drone

When the trio reaches the abandoned parking lot, Marcus quickly fixes a jeep. But as soon as it begins running, the jeep starts playing music. This attracts a robotic scout, and the three try to escape.

They manage to kill this scouting drone, but when they reach a gas station, they meet a group of people who aren’t happy to see them. However, this contentious meeting doesn’t last long because apparently the robots were still following the trio somehow. A giant robot bursts through the roof of the gas station and begins grabbing people.

Marcus and Kyle try to destroy the robot and escape. But by the time the lengthy chase scene is over, Kyle and the kid are captured and placed in a giant ship that will take them to Skynet’s main facility.

As for Marcus, he falls into a river. However, John notices more robotic activity on his radar, so he sends some jets to investigate. All the jets are destroyed, but one pilot survives. Her name is Williams.

Marcus meets Williams by chance and tells her that he wants to go after Kyle and the kid. But Williams suggests talking to John Connor first because he might have a way to rescue them.

 While traveling to John Connor’s base, the two begin to fall in love. I won’t bother detailing what happens during the next few scenes because they’re largely a waste of time. They’re more of a travel log for hormonal teenagers.

Romance postponed

Anyway, the romance doesn’t really have a chance to blossom because once the couple reaches the home of the Resistance, they must first go through a minefield. Williams reassures Marcus, telling him they’ll be fine because the mines are magnetic: As long as they stay in a certain section of the field, nothing will happen. Marcus agrees to follow her, but as he’s walking, a mine sticks to his leg and explodes.

The Resistance’s medics, led by John’s wife Kate, place Marcus on a gurney and begin to render aid. But when they open his shirt, they see something Marcus doesn’t.

One of the Resistance members knocks Marcus out. When he wakes up again, he finds himself looking at John Connor. He’s also dangling over a pit while chained to a car axle.

John begins asking Marcus questions that seem to imply that he’s been built. When Marcus insists that he’s human, John unchains his head, allowing Marcus to look down on himself. He sees that the flesh around his chest has been ripped open, and inside his body is a metallic ribcage. Marcus begins to scream.

Is Marcus human?

This is one of the best scenes in the movie, and I can see why the promotional material showed the dialog between John and Marcus at this point in the film. The writers could’ve gone the easy route and portrayed John as a straight-up villain but they avoided this cliché impulse. They portray John as being genuinely confused and trying to understand the situation. This scene also does a good job communicating Marcus’s shock. Sam Worthington gives a marvelous performance here, showing a man who is both horrified and baffled by what he has become. Alas, the writers still needed to force some drama.

The setup for this situation is clunky but fair. What I mean is that the misunderstanding is established correctly. John knows that Skynet has another kill list, and that Kyle is number one on that list while he is number two. However, the dialog that creates the misunderstanding between Marcus and John is strategic, which makes it sound awkward.

Marcus says that he didn’t even know of John’s existence until recently, and that he knows Kyle has been captured by Skynet. The way he words this forces John to conclude that Marcus is yet another Terminator sent to kill him. So, he orders Marcus’s termination.

Fortunately, Williams doesn’t buy the idea that Marcus is just a robot and helps him escape. But while she’s hatching her plan, the writers do take the time to show that John is no fool, which is something I really appreciated. Competent characters are so rare in cinema it’s scary.

John returns to his room and begins listening to his mother’s tapes, trying to find some mention of a robot like Marcus. Sarah Connor doesn’t bring up such a creature, so John is still confused. What if Marcus is telling the truth? This creates a problem for him because if Marcus is right about Kyle’s capture, he might need Marcus’ help to rescue his future father. While John is wrestling with this dilemma, he learns that Williams has helped Marcus escape and rushes to a helicopter to try and stop the potential Terminator. We’ll cover what happens then next Saturday.    

Here’s the first part of my review of Terminator: Salvation:

Terminator Salvation (2009): A better film than Terminator 3. With three Terminator movies talking about the future, it was about time for the future to finally show up. By the end of the movie the viewer briefly sees John become something of a mentor, if not an outright father figure, for Kyle.