There was no focused story. Who was the lead character?

John Connor doesn't really learn anything new and we never see him as someone who's a cold blooded killer who is losing his humanity because he's so focused on winning the war. He doesn't really have a story.

Marcus could have been the focus because he actually has something going on but we never heard it. He didn't really change much from when he first encountered Reese. His journey was pretty empty.

So the only existing story was really "Kill or Be Killed" but then the machines inexplicably decided to never kill the #1 person on their kill list. All they needed to make their plan work was for Marcus to see Kyle get taken. Once that's done, they could have offed Reese. How many times did the machines recognize Reece to then just take him hostage?

And then the whole plan to kill Connor was ridiculous. The plan had no endgame. They lured him into a trap that wasn't a trap and was actually exactly where he wanted to be to blow up Skynet.

So in the end, there was no real story besides the basic premise and then the film didn't even follow the logic of its own premise.