Moon Bloodgood

Today in History. Today is Sunday, Sept. 20, the 263rd day of 2009. There are 102 days left in the year.

At a certain point in ``Terminator Salvation,'' grizzled savior of mankind John Connor (Christian Bale) heads out the door to do battle, turns to his pregnant wife (Bryce Dallas Howard), and growls, ``I'll be back.'' Oh, please. Tell us something we don't know. The audience laughs with relief when he says that, of course, grateful to have a reminder of the loopy, relentless B-movie drive that enlivened the first ``Terminator'' 25 years ago. Pleasure is not on the punch-list this time, sadly. The latest installment in the venerable sci-fi action franchise turns out to be a straight-up war film, grim and muscular and thundering and joyless. It's the color of cement, and it weighs as much, too. Will ``Salvation'' make a lick of sense if you haven't seen parts 1 through 3 (leaving aside TV's ``Sarah Connor Chronicles'')? Nope. Some background, then: In the earlier movies, the machines of the Skynet corporation have taken over Earth and done their level best to wipe out mankind, nuking citi