Okay. Back to "Salvation." Needless to say, spoilers are to come. If you want a proper review, I encourage you to check out Kurt Loder's more detailed assessment on MTV.com. It's an interesting beast, "Terminator Salvation." All previous incarnations of the franchise have dealt with protecting the Connor family and preventing mankind's fall at the "hands" of a global artificial intelligence gone rogue. Always, there was this possibility that the nuclear holocaust might be diverted, that Skynet might be made to lose before its winning was ever a possibility. Then the bombs fall at the end of "Rise," and destiny becomes reality.

While "Rise" merely concluded with the suggestion that fate's course is set, "Salvation" embraces the idea without any thought, instead busying itself with maneuvering key players into place. John Connor remains the "prophesied savior of humanity," but the Connor we meet here is also a member of the rank-and-file. Kyle Reese is out there in the world, apparently number one with a bullet on Skynet's public enemies list. How the AI is aware of Reese's future importance -- it is established in "Terminator" that he is Connor's father -- is a mystery.

I've been turning the movie over in my head all weekend. The action sequences are very tight and the visual effects are impressive -- particularly not-Arnold Schwarzenegger's cameo -- but something felt "off" to me as the credits rolled.

The occasionally clunky writing was my first suspect, especially with the many shoehorned-in references to the previous movies. That can't be it, though. "Terminator" and "T2," arguably the best offerings in the series, aren't exactly great literary works. As with any movie which tackles the thorny issue of time travel, plot holes are pretty much an expectation. And really, clunky franchise references aside, "Salvation's" writing isn't all that bad.

Next I looked to the performances. Bale came off feeling slightly more human than his take on Batman does, though the raspy growl popped up more than a few times throughout "Salvation." Yelchin was pitch-perfect playing a young Michael Biehn-as-Kyle Reese. Sam Worthington's Marcus Wright was solid as well, to the point that his scenes felt much more important AND entertaining than any of Connor's. Even still, there wasn't any single performance that bothered me enough to justify my negative reaction. We definitely get Christian Bale's badass mofo interpretation of John Connor, but that's kinda who he's supposed to turn into; it's not like we have any idea of what Connor was up to between the end of "Rise" and the beginning of "Salvation," in 2018.

That's when I figured out what was bugging me. "Terminator Salvation" just doesn't feel like a "Terminator" movie anymore. Even as they grew in both size and number, the machines felt somehow less threatening. Schwarzenegger, Robert Patrick, even Kristanna Loken... they were truly memorable villains. Each approached their mission with a quiet, calculating intensity. The first two "Terminator" especially are almost sci-fi/horror for the way their villains are treated. Nothing can stop a Terminator robot on a rampage; you simply have to run and hope that it doesn't catch up.

For all of the desperate hopelessness in McG's post-apocalypse, there's simply no face to pin a threat on. Sure, you could argue that the late-stage expository exchange between Wright and Skynet -- wearing Helena Bonham Carter's face -- serves to put a face on the enemy, but I call that a cop-out. The biggest machine threat in "Terminator Salvation" is quite literally the largest robot; a giant-sized human-harvesting monstrosity that lasts for as long as it takes for a single -- albeit impressive -- action sequence to play out. I have to wonder, if Skynet is as dangerous as all that, what the hell are humanity's remaining players doing setting up anything other than a mobile base. The human high command has the right idea, hiding out in a submarine. Not that it does them any good in the end.

The closest we get to a true "Terminator" moment comes near the end of "Salvation," when Schwarzenegger (circa 1984) appears in a digitally created cameo. He too lasts for little more than the length of a single action sequence. As energized as I felt by the sudden appearance of the original Terminator, it now stands as a shining example to me of "Salvation's" many missed opportunities. There's more terror, more excitement in Connor's too-brief encounter with the T-800 than there is in the rest of the movie. We've suddenly moved away from the post-apocalyptic sci-fi blockbuster and back to the horror of the original films.

There's definitely something to be said for the story demanding this change in tone. After all, if the myth of John Connor is to really be established as fact, he's going to have to stop running from those machines at some point. I guess I was just expecting (hoping?) that the transformation would be more gradual, more elegant. What I appreciated most about the TV series was the detectable change in John's persona as further experiences with Skynet's lackeys shaped him. Perhaps this was the intention from the start, but for all of its slavish adherence to certain series tropes, "Salvation" feels just a bit too much like a reboot for this fan's tastes.

What are the rest of you thinking? Did "Terminator Salvation" fail to deliver as you'd hoped it would? Can you appreciate the change in direction and tone? Would you characterize this as a "reboot" or simply the latest chapter in a series?