Terminator Genisys

Arnie is back again in a Terminator movie, and while all the special effects and explosions are back in all their twisted glory - the story just makes no sense whatsoever.

It's really not even comprehensible. I mean, I tried and all. However the story writers decided to seriously complicate the plot from a "Back to the Future" understanding of time travel and fast forward it all the way to a "Primer" levels of time travel. The end result is an incomprehensible mess of a story.

If the plot is just so utterly jumbled - that even IF I were to sit down and motivated to even try to understand it - it really doesn't matter. The end result is a story we don't understand. A story we don't care about. A story about people we don't understand and couldn't care less about - because we have no idea who what or why anything is even happening. It's as if the movie wants to say "Things are going to blow up! Just accept it!".

Terminator Genisys is a pure example about how movies can ultimately say nothing about the human condition and for all the special effects effectively mean zilch - and be all the worse for it. There was some subtle theme about being too trusting of technology with all our connected devices in there but it was so limp-wristed, so pathetically tacked on, and half-hearted that it deserves to be ignored.

But by golly, by jingo, by jimminy willers, there were a lot of explosions!

If it wasn't part of such a genre redefining franchise as Terminator, Genisys would be a perfectly serviceable action sci-fi. Sure the dialogue is clunky as hell, the convoluted time travel conceits don't ever really make sense and despite one decent twist it's a tad predictable. But hey this is blockbuster cinema and the action is great, the film rattles along at pace and the acting is genuinely not bad (Courtenay spending a large part of the film topless didn't hurt either!). But you can't escape the legacy. This IS supposed to be part of the Terminator mythology. Despite Arnie's best comedic efforts (he steals most scenes he's in) you can't get past what an inferior addition this is to join at least two of the most iconic sci-fi films of the 20th century. Whilst enjoyable enough in its own right, hopefully this will be the last attempt to resurrect the past Terminator glories.

I just don't know what to say. Having grown up with the first 2, I'm a big Terminator fan, but having watched 3 & 4, I'm a realistic Terminator fan. I knew going in it was never going to top the first 2, I just didn't want it to be worse than 3 & 4, and it is. It really is. I've seen it twice now and I don't think I can accurately describe how disappointing it is. It runs the gauntlet of prequel, sequel, remake, reboot and parody (of other terminators) never fully deciding on what it is. What we're left with is a convoluted mess that is neither prequel, sequel, remake or reboot, but rather a film that just says "F&%^ all the other ones"

I've heard people say it's similar to the star trek reboot, no its not. Star Trek created a parallel universe in which the adventures of the originals still happened, while their younger selves now travel a new path. In Genysis, the parallel universe only serves to Completely negates everything we've ever seen in a Terminator movie. Which is weird cause they pay homage to the original at first, and then crap all over it.

While the voice over was cheesy, the movie actually starts off strong and shows A LOT of potential, you're thinking "alright, this is interesting." And then, all of the sudden, without any real warning, all that potential is gone and the movie drops off completely. Arnold is nothing more than a caricature of himself, Emilia Clarke (Sarah) is decent enough but the Sarah we know is no more, Jason Clarke (john) is awful and has less charisma than most math teachers, but the worst is Jai Courtney (Reese) whose wooden performance is made all the worse by his odd horse face. And now for the action, eh. What's the 1 thing a Terminator movie has to have in it (besides a cyborg and a Connor)? An edge of your seat, over the top car chase scene right? Yeah, this bus chase does not, IN ANY WAY, cut it. Yes, a worse chase seen than Salvation.

Why didn't they just make a movie set in the future that tells the story of Kyle going back? And now plans for a trilogy, this being part one. Really? Why? (Writing this the day it came out), this movie is probably going to come in 4th on opening weekend, behind a stripper movie, a kiddie movie that has been out for 2 weeks, and another sequel that has been out for 3 weeks. Do you really need to waste more money with this cast and storyline? Mad Max, which was never ever near as popular, both financially and critically, did way better than you and without their ageing star who would've made the movie worse.

Pretty contrived and cheesy but the acting wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's fun, has plenty of action and throwback Easter eggs. It won't blow you away but it's a decent action flick. If it had a better script it would have had more potential.

The new Terminator wasn't terrible! I'm surprised. Though it had its flaws it was much better then Terminator 3 and Salvation... and I actually enjoyed it mostly. I probably won't be watching it like 30 times like Judgement Day, but its not like I expected it to ever live up to Cameron's work....

First off, the action was good and so was the pace, the film never became boring even with how complex the story was so it certainly gets points for that.

The film itself runs like the greatest hits of the the franchise which is both good and bad.

The pros: Revisiting 1984 (the first terminator timeline) was a lot of fun for obvious reasons.. You get more things like crazy manoeuvres from the T1000 etc and Arnie gets to kick some ass and even be funny at times....

The cons: How many times do they have to repeat lines from the previous films? Sarah Conner says: "Come with me if you want to live" Really? Again? Really? Come on, having that as an obligatory line in each movie is actually annoying. "I'll be back" is just like an obligatory oh, we'll just squeeze that in there, the audience will love that! Nope, not really, see in the first Terminator that had impact! Like the impact of a car coming through the wall! This is there just for the sake of it...

Aside from that, I think JK Simmons character was borderline pointless, you could nearly have cut him out of the movie and barely noticed! A crying shame for such an excellent actor.. Generally the script could have done with more tweaking, some plot towards the end just seemed outright silly, but I will say the chemistry between Arnie and Emilia was actually pretty good!

Overall: It's no Judgement day but you know what, it was actually a decent film and it was great to see Arnie as the Terminator again, and not saying "talk to the hand" . I can see why James Cameron endorsed this as the true sequel to T2...