Terminator is one of the few franchises that managed to accomplish that ever elusive superior sequel, while The Terminator was and is held in high regard, the slightly less gritty and depressing and rather more upbeat and explody Terminator 2: Judgement Day is probably one of the most beloved and popular films in the science fiction or action genre. Naturally, such popular franchises seldom stay on the shelf forever and a few years back we had the rather less well received Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines... which was kind of a rehash of 2 and really seemed like a gratuitous set up for today's topic, Terminator: Salvation.

The "problem" Terminator 2 had was... Judgement Day was averted - that's kind of why they gave Arnie a molten metal bath. So, while Terminator 2 espoused free will and a maleable future... 3 went "Oh, yeah - sorry guys, the war is inevitable, sucks, right?" thus making the events of the film fairly pointless but nicely setting up the events of Salvation, a jolly post-apocalypse fight against giant killer robots. Ok, people sized killer robots... well, some of them are giant - which is awesome.

In fact, one of the best things about the film is that we aren't limited to the iconic shiny skeletons, walking around with plasma weapons. We've got mecha terminators, motorcycle terminators and even kind of little snake ones. It would have been pretty easy for the designers to be lazy and just stick with the established staples, so it's good to see that they didn't skimp on this aspect.

More interesting than the design is the fact the focus of the story is rather less on John Connor. He's got a good amount of screen time but Kyle Reese has a decent amount and a new character Marcus gobbles up plenty of it... in fact, it's really more his story. Which is something of a surprising choice. Really, the logical angle of attack is Kyle Reese and John Connor with their somewhat bizarre relationship...

So, the story? How about the story? Ok - we start out with Marcus on death row. Then we jump to the future, Christian Bale is shooting robots and being awesome... sadly, no one else quite passes the "must be this awesome to live" test and they all die. Yup, there's an inspiring saviour of humanity - managing to preside over the death of everyone in his squad.

Anyway, Marcus and a young Kyle Reese meet up and Kyle doesn't think there's much suspicious about a muddy guy, wandering around the post-apocalyptic wasteland, oblivious of the fact humanity got its ass beat by Skynet and now there are killing death robots, looking to kill any meatbags they see.

Inexplicably, Kyle Reese is a high priority target... but that means Skynet would know the future. So... why would it keep the deathcamps and not just murder everyone if it knows that future stuff? Anyway... we go through some nice actions scenes. Marcus finds his way to John Connor - turns out Marcus is actually a machine... and there is some signal that stops Skynet. The big plan is to use this signal to stop Skynet - even though it's a really obvious trap... guess they should have had admiral Akbar with them.

So, Marcus was designed to go to the Skynet HQ all along - who'd have thought! But he's actually got his free will. This doesn't stop Skynet from going all SHODAN and going through exposition on its plan. Long story short, the battle is won but the war is not yet over - and John Connor gets Marcus's heart... making him mostly just a McGuffin.

JJ Abrams pretty much said from the get go, he never really liked Star Trek as a child... which probably - somewhat perversely - made him a rather good choice for the inevitable reboot of the franchise. Why inevitable? Because Star Trek is just about the longest running sci-fi franchise, with one of the most rabid fanbases...

Which has been the problem in recent years. The TNG films especially were perceived as lengthy episode, aimed at the fanbase - rather than the actual general public. Which isn't a particularly good way to make money. Hence, Hollywood's current golden boy being given the keys to the broken franchise.

There isn't a great deal to say about the film, as it happens. It's solid and enjoyable but... it's forgettable. It skirts close to being little more than a big dumb action film but... it avoids that - not due to the idiotic story - because of the solid casting. Bones and Spock are dead on... Kirk is passable... the other characters are as transitory as they are in the series. So, it's not quite built around the pretty (if rather too frequently prone to lens flare and shaky cam) action scenes entirely. Which isn't to say Nero isn't a two dimensional non-character... because, he is. Even IF you were to read the comic that precedes the film for his background his motivation still equates to BEING INSANE.

Thin story - good characters, good action... decent film. There isn't much to say about it. It's just kinda... And that sums it up. Not QUITE big dumb action but really - not far off. Better than Lost... but so is slamming your genitals in the door.

So, Transformers Animated has returned for a third season. While it's probably not something that could strictly be called a retooling things definitely seem to have changed direction to some extent. Following the revelation that Sari is part machine, she basically becomes - through a series of events - an autobot/human teenager. Her role is notably dialled down and the show has a far greater focus on the robots and a more consistent focus on the conflict between the autobots and decipticons, particularly in regard to Cybertron.

It's a good direction for the show to move. Clearly, this is never going to be the G1 show and it's never really TRIED to be... and it's rather too late in the day for that now. The changes do represent a marginalising of the less interesting aspects... and a general improvement. Still not great... it's not in the same league as Spectacular Spiderman or Wolverine & The X-men... but it's better than it used to be.

Ah, Wolverine - a word that sets a million fanboy hearts racing. Fanboys are shit and need to die.

Of course, the fact Hugh Jackman is Wolverine means... well, girls melt for him. Guys think he's awesome. Fanboys... are like lawyers. Not really human. Not worth the consideration of being human.

This film apparently needed ten minutes extra... it really didn't. It needed a STORY. Wolverine's story is one of the most tediously over covered parts of Marvel continuity these days. Given the fact his origins are SECRET... anyone that touched a comic book probably knows the Weapon X story by heart.

Sadly, even the recent animated Hulk vs. Wolverine managed to do a better job at the Weapon X story... and everything except Wolverine popping his claws back in the mid 19th century is skipped over. Granted, 150 years would be a fair bit to cover but there you go. After we get to Vietnam, gross insubordination leads to the an execution for Sabertooth and Wolverine - who are half brothers, by the way. So, we get to them joining the Weapon X project. Wolverine gets a bit bored of murdering people - he has apparently fought in a good portion of all major conflicts in the 19th and 20th centuries... so, makes sense he might get bored of seeing his brother go crazy.

There's no real point getting to know his team mates because they're one dimensional and their screen time is easily counted in seconds. Get used to that. There are a whole gamut of mutant cameos that are short even by cameo standards. Even characters that are significant to the plot - like Gambit... who actually is essentially there PURELY as a plot device to move Logan from A to B - don't get a great deal of screen time. It's really all about Wolverine... like all the X-men films, really. Anyway, he hooks up with Silverfox and is a happy lumberjack - for... no reason but predictably... walking away from a secret black ops group doesn't work out too well and Sabretooth is murdering former team mates - but who REALLY cares. There's no investment in these characters... so, Sabretooth kills Silverfox and Wolverine goes to Weapon X to get adamantium so he can murder Sabretooth.

Then he goes to fight Sabretooth - fights Sabretooth... Then Weapon XI turns up. Yeah, not a real character from the comics... and he has a half dozen powers - oh and he's supposed to be Deadpool... even though Deadpool just has a healing factor... and the fight was fairly anticlimatic.

Then, naturally - Wolverine's memories get wiped by a magical plot device bullet. Silverfox dies... again - oh and Emma Frost is her sister... and another swathe of meaningless mutants... including Cyclops... for no real reason. They do nothing more than run out of the base after Wolverine frees them. So, Gambit comes back to pick up Wolverine - and Wolverine goes off to forget everything and wander around until the X-men film...

It's the problem all prequels suffer from... you always know where things are going to be come the end... so, we knew that Logan was going to end up having his memory wiped... ah well... That's really the least of the problems. The characters really just seem to orbit Jackman, pushing him in the direction he needs to go. The story is pretty weak and it's hard to give a damn about anyone other than Wolverine and maybe Sabretooth because no one is really around long enough to do more than show their abilities. Wolverine's claws look terrible throughout - it's very obviously they're CGI... Really, just a chronically weak story, pretty average fight scenes and just a slew of not very compelling cameos that amounted to little make this a pretty luke warm film. Fanboys might get hung up on some of the details... but really, they're not worth paying attention to compared to a number of rather more glaring inadequacies.

DC has... a huge monopoly on characters that have become ingrained upon the collective cultural memory of the West. It goes without saying that Batman is probably only really in competition with Superman for the most ubiquitous... although, these days Batman is probably firmly on top in terms of popularity - not least due to the uber popular Chris Nolan Batman films.

Naturally, that was preceded by the Timmverse Batman: The Animated Series and the Justice League cartoon. Which are generally considered by fans and critics to be awesome. Even the somewhat weaker Gotham Knights is still pretty solid.

And then came THE BATMAN. Unashamedly aimed at the 5 year olds and mentally retarded. Mostly the mentally. Whatever the Timmverse was... was so quickly forgotten in this shameful embarrassment of that abortive nonsense. That well... uh.

Anyway, THE BATMAN finished. It was natural for fans to be apprehensive about Batman: The Brave And The Bold... It was pretty much proclaiming to be campy... but as it happens... it's pretty good. It's using some of DC's less known villains - but deliberately so... Blue Beetle is there, the Green Arrow and Batman have a rivalry. Not nearly as campy as one might think.

Batman is still kinda broody not the campy 60s Batman... or the pointless The Batman character... It was easy to see this as a futile venture but it has proven itself... It's rather enjoyable.