In Defense of Terminator 4: Salvation

In light of the other movies that came out in the spring/summer of 2009 (Transformers 2, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra), I'm not sure why everyone made so much noise about Terminator 4 being so awful. For starters, it was demonstrably better than Terminator 3, and those of us who had been following the Sarah Connor Chronicles and mourning its cancellation were primed and ready for more Terminator at that point. Below, I set the record straight on where the movie falls on the scale (where 10 = District 9, 1 = Transformers 2, G.I.Joe).

5 Reasons Why Terminator 4 Actually Kicked Ass:

1. Guy Candy
Take your pick here - Sam Worthington or Christian Bale (or, I suppose, Arnold's head attached to not-Arnold's-body). The number one rule of apocalyptic sci-fi is that the sweatier, oilier, and filthier the men are, the hotter they look. Sam Worthington in particular has the boyish face on that dirty, dirty body that makes you forget about John Connor about halfway through the movie.

2. Related: Dudity
The Terminator franchise has long had a history of nudity, necessitated by the nature of time travel itself (you can't take your clothes with you), and Terminator 4 is no exception. The afore-mentioned Sam Worthington stars in a scene where he emerges from a heap of rubble full-frontally,clad only in mud from head to toe. Likewise, not-Arnold's body has a full-frontal scene with the relevant parts obscured by smoke of some sort. It was actually a good year for dudity in sci-fi, when you add Terminator 4 to Watchmen (blue genitalia) and Wolverine (side view of Hugh Jackman running around naked) - although both Watchmen and Wolverine were inferior to Terminator 4.

3. Guy Candy Who Are Also Good Actors
Christian Bale followed a great performance in Dark Knight, and Sam Worthington is now in demand for a number of upcoming movie projects, as well as having appeared recently in Avatar (also not as good as Terminator 4).

4. Not Transformers 2
The plot was coherent and moved along quickly (unlike Transformers 2), with lots of explosions (like Transformers 2) until the last 5 or 10 minutes, which I have decided to rewrite in my head back to one of the earlier rumored endings, where John Connor turns out to be a hot robot, and Marcus lives happily on, and they are both hot robots together.

5. Set in the Post-Apocalyptic Future
The earlier Terminator movies are generally set in the Past, with only tantalizing views of the grim Future. Terminator 4 gives us a new spin by doing the opposite and giving us a new perspective on John Connor.