I’ll come right out and admit that I enjoyed Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Do I think it was a great action flick, on par with the previous two installments in the franchise? Not at all, but there was enough good stuff in the sequel to entertain me. And I know I’m not alone in this opinion. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear there’s much that’s good in Terminator Salvation, reviews for which are downright terrible. This deeply upsets me, because this was the blockbuster I looked forward to most this summer. Now I don’t feel there’s any reason to check it out.

Of course, I’m probably alone in that last statement. Wednesday night’s midnight shows were a hit and the movie is expected to be huge at the box office this weekend (the fact that it opened on a Thursday before Memorial Day should pad the gross very well). So, since many of you will be going to see this anyway, and hardly pay attention to scores at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, I might as well reach around the blogosphere and pull out as many favorable quotes as I can find, even those buried inside primarily negative reviews. And hopefully you will do me the favor of commenting with any other good stuff that makes it worth it for me to buy a ticket.

Thanks in advance for that, and here’s the positive spin, after the jump:

• Alex Billington at First Showing is 100% positive in his judgment:
  

  believe it or not, I actually loved Terminator Salvation. I went into it expecting to hate it but walked out loving it, through and through. I really think McG pulled it off. It looks great, sounds great, the action is awesome, the effects are even better, the performances are all great, what more do we need besides that? Oh right, a good story, and you know what, it had one. Sure it had a few rough edges and some minor plot holes, but overall I enjoyed it, in fact, I had a blast watching it.

• The Arrow at JoBlo is just as excited about the movie as Alex, if not more so. From his “bottom line” summation:
  

  Good story, strong actors, fly visuals and jaw dropping visual effects, I doubt I’ll have more fun with a film this summer than I had with this puppy. Shoddy character/relationship development and a handful of severe plot holes aside; this was one served up TIME WELL SPENT in spades. It’s a 3 on 4 on paper rating wise for me, but I’m giving it a 3 and a half because it thrilled me so damn much!

• Erik Davis at Cinematical opens his review raving positively:
  

  Terminator Salvation roars to life on screen with enough gutsy firepower to literally shake you in your seat. She’s a mean, loud metallic beast that hasn’t eaten in years, and the only commands she understands come in the form of growls, snarls, bullets and explosions. You can’t really ask for more from an action picture (well you can, but we’ll get to that); with Terminator Salvation, director McG proves that he’s more than a punchline for online jokes — his action scenes are fierce and eye-popping; he gives us the post-apocalyptic Skynet world we’ve always wanted to see and then asks if we want seconds or thirds.

• Massawyrm at Aint it Cool New may have the most excited reaction of all:
  

  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the action here. McG does a great job of putting you in the middle of some crazy, awesome battles against the machines. From gritty urban warfare against stray terminators to dogfights against Hunter-Killer airships, this thing hits a number of extremes and puts us in a world entirely destroyed by the machines. This is a post-apocalyptic film, a nuclear waste nightmare in which the last few humans alive work together in a loosely organized network to try and bring down the machines. There are some very cool sequences and not a boring moment to be found throughout the breathless film.

• Keith Phipps at the A.V. Club favors the movie over its predecessor:
  

  As long as McG keeps the action moving, the film remains on solid ground, matching and often surpassing the thoroughly adequate 2003 entry Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines. He’s clearly immersed himself in the work of Terminator mastermind James Cameron, and Cameron’s relentless approach to action—juiced up by some state-of-2009 digital effects—serves him well.

• A.O. Scott at The New York Times favors the movie over some of its summer blockbuster peers:
  

  [The movie] has a brute integrity lacking in some of the other seasonal franchise movies. It parades neither the egghead aspirations of “Star Trek” nor the thick-skulled pretensions of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” but instead feels both comfortable with its limitations and justly proud of its accomplishments.

• Charlie Jane Anders at i09 thinks it’s at least better than X-Men Origins: Wolverine and has “more real-feeling” action sequences than Transformers. She also claims, “there’s a good, maybe even great, movie here, and you catch glimpses of it from time to time.” Here’s her description of one of those times:
  

  there are a couple of real stand-out action sequences early on, and some fun stuff later on. In fact, the action sequences are pleasingly free of jump-cuts. You have one sequence, where John Connor climbs out of an underground base just as it blows up, then he gets in a helicopter, and the helicopter gets smashed, and he crashes it upside down, which is all one continous take. And it’s a really nice-looking sequence.

• Capone at Aint it Cool News also highlights this “damned impressive” scene and calls TS “a hell of a war film.” More praise for the action:
  

  Most of the action sequences are top notch, from an attack at a gas station where we see the full range of Terminator variations (I really like the ones that look like motorcycles) to the climactic battle set at a Terminator production facility. Since so much of the film revolves around some powerful, well-staged action set pieces, if that’s all you care about, you should have a pretty great time watching this movie.

• Quint at Aint it Cool News commends one of the performances:
  

  out of everybody in the movie Anton Yelchin knocks it out of the park. I never in a million years would have thought that his performance would be my favorite in this film, but the kid takes enough of Michael Biehn’s mannerisms (a lot of talking through his teeth) to make Kyle feel like the one we know without mimicking Biehn’s performance.

• Christopher Monfette at IGN thinks the movie is unnecessary, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing:
  

  just because something is ultimately unnecessary doesn’t mean it can’t be entertaining, and so long as you don’t require Terminator Salvation to live up to its cinematic pedigree, you’ll likely find a visually impressive and effects-filled way to pass two hours away from the mid-summer heat. Ask anything greater, and you’re more likely to discover damnation than Salvation.