12 Terrible Movies That Blew Awesome Concepts

4. Terminator Salvation

The Pitch

What if Terminator fans finally got that future war movie they've been asking for since the very first Terminator movie? What if that incredible opening sequence from T2 was, you know, the entire movie?

And what if it starred Christian Bale as John Connor?

What Went Wrong

Even with the dubious credentials of director McG, it was incredibly easy to be lured in by the terrific marketing, which touted the fourth Terminator movie as a gritty rebuke to the not-bad but overly comical Terminator 3.

Yet Salvation ultimately goes too far the other way, stripping out even the agreeable black humour of the first two movies, leaving behind a dull, soulless husk of a blockbuster without much on its mind at all.

In addition, the big twist - that Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) is a man-machine hybrid - was spoiled in the film's marketing, while the action is indifferently helmed by McG, and the washed-out cinematography is really quite hideous.

Most shockingly of all, though, Bale's shouty performance is a total misfire, failing to convey the heroism or the conflicted nature of the resistance leader, and ultimately not bringing much life to the part at all.

And if all that's not bad enough, the character to have the most personality is a crude CGI Arnold Schwarzenegger abomination, in surely the series' most appalling bout of fan-service yet.