![]() ![]() In a film not short of exploring moral darkness, it’s arguably the darkest passage of all. It’s a tonally perfect end to an excellent film, one that creeps into your brain and resonates for some time to come. So, we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. “Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. “He didn’t do anything wrong”, protests his son. ![]() “Because we must chase him”, Gordon solemnly replies. It’s the bit where he’s asked by his puzzled son why Batman, who has just saved Gotham, has to run away. The haunting element to this, and a further example of just how bold the film is, comes in the dialogue that Gary Oldman’s Gordon delivers as Batman flees the scene of Harvey’s death. He does it with Harvey Dent, and by the end of The Dark Knight, he’s effectively done it to Batman too. There’s nothing that he can do to rile The Joker, whose aim ultimately is to take the best of people and turn them to rubble. The Joker, of course, is the villain that’s the hardest for Batman to do battle with, as exposed by the futility of the caped one’s interrogation room moment. It’s an ending that certainly lifts an already quite decent film, aided by a narrative that could have been lifted from a news bulletin, given how skilfully it plays on very real life fears. ![]() But then writer-director Chris Gorak pulls a twist ending, but also a creepy one, that questions just what’s being kept in and just what’s being kept out. The film poses one moral dilemma when Brad’s wife arrives home, covered in ashes from the explosion, and he has to decide whether to let her in and potentially contaminate the house. ![]() Brad, played by Rory Cochrane, heeds that advice, and seals up his house to keep the bad stuff out. The explosion of a dirty bomb in Los Angeles brings with it a toxic cloud, and the advice that people should stay indoors at all costs. The core idea feels very real for a start. The ending, however, turns things around and makes – for interesting reasons – much of what has gone before really quite futile. It’s a bit of a bumpy film this one, predominantly taking place in a single location with a premise that just – just – about stretches to feature length. Mind you, we got an excellent Terminator spin-off series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and they went and cancelled that after two seasons… 21. This is where a television series would have worked, too: removed of the need to shoehorn another starring role for Schwarzenegger into it, a Terminator spin-off series could have picked up with John and Catherine walking out of that bunker, and picking up the battle. It’s a pity that Terminator: Salvation wouldn’t pick up on this, as its melancholy ending invited further exploration. He just needs to get them safe before all hell breaks loose. As it turns out, the latest Arnie model Terminator has, all along, been working to a different agenda. He thought he was battling to fend off Skynet’s attack. What sets the ending apart is that it effectively renders the battle that John Connor and Catherine Brewster have been fighting for the duration of the film useless. ![]()
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