MAN battles the machines once again in an all-guns- blazing reboot of the Terminator series, which sows the seeds of a new trilogy charting John Connor’s rise to leader of the Resistance in the aftermath of Judgment Day.

The fourth film is a very bleak affair - a colour-bleached war opus that pits the last vestiges of humanity against a fully-aware Skynet and its robotic foot soldiers.

Director McG and his crew conjure an arresting and desolate vision of the near future, and some of the action sequences are orchestrated with brio including the crash-landing of a helicopter in a river full of serpent-like Hydrobots.

However, the script is as lifeless, clunky and mechanical as some of the killing machines, constructed by bolting together cliches and trite aphorisms that attempt to pass muster as dialogue.

Screenwriters John Bracato and Michael Ferris, who penned Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, focus too intently on honouring the series’s past to create anything memorable of their own.

In post-apocalyptic 2018, John Connor (Christian Bale) leads the dwindling human race against Skynet and its relentless army of Terminators, flanked by his doctor wife Kate (Bryce Dallas Howard), second-in-command Barnes (Common) and feisty lieutenant Blair (Moon Bloodgood).

Like the machines, John searches in vain for Kyle Reese, the man who is destined to be sent back in time to protect his mother.

On the decimated US West Coast, death-row prisoner Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) crosses paths with Kyle (Anton Yelchin) and nine-year-old, mute ward Star (Jadagrace Berry) during an attack by a T-600.

They escape and gravitate towards John and his compatriots while Resistance leader General Ashdown (Michael Ironside) plots a daring attack, which could cripple Skynet forever.