Call it “Terminator: Full Throttle.” Or, “Apocalypse, and How!” Elemental and steely, the third “Terminator” sequel, directed by Joseph McGinty Nichol (aka “McG”) has a consistency of tone-devastation and despair lightened only by the beating of human hearts-that’s, well, heartening in a summer action big-budgeter that tends to crushing steampunk-style production design. Devastated Los Angeles 2018, a presidential administration, if not a heartbeat away: amid post-nuclear silt and rain and crud and slush, the machines of Skynet continue their battle to exterminate humanity. (Okay, how about “Das Reboot?”) Middle-aged John Connor (Christian Bale) has to find his teenage, future father Kyle Reece (Anton Yelchin) who will be propelled back in time in some past sequel about future events. A death-row killer transformed into man-machine, Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) becomes loner, adversary, suspect, colleague. Everyone’s got a destiny, and along the way, chows down on two-day-old coyote (“Better than three-day coyote.”) McG avoids flashbacks, stitching setpiece to setpiece with breathless fervor. Many scenes are shot in extended takes in wide shot, especially an early scene involving Connor (that surely involves a few CGI sutures because of its eye-opening complexity): spatially coherent battle scenes that aren’t cut-cut-cut are a rare twenty-first century treat. Sophisticated traveling shots, crawling, ascending, gymbaling, gyrating and plunging have weight. And while I wouldn’t say that McG’s proven himself an action director with an eye for clean carpentry like John Sturges (“Bad Day at Black Rock”), I’d guess his influences run to that classical style. Plus a Hollywood sign in gentle shreds, Christ imagery, Golem references, a whiff of stands of trees ablaze a la “Apocalypse Now,” Skynet’s city of industry a gas-flaring nightscape a close cousin to the opening tableaux of “Blade Runner.” The simple machina-ex-machina ending is an ideal dovetailing of plot and theme. 112m. With Jane Alexander, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter, Common, Bryce Dallas Howard and a brief nude cameo by somebody-or-other. 115m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Ray Pride)
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