It’s not a sequel, it’s not a prequel and it’s not a reboot... it’s kind of an... "inbetweenquel". Yes, because time travel solves everything and sequels, reboots and remakes are easier to make than original ideas so why not have another Terminator film? Thankfully, this one is better than the last two, but can’t quite capture the magic of the original two.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger returns as the Terminator, only in this film he is sent too far
back in time and becomes the guardian of a young Sarah Connor thus changing the
original timeline forever. So essentially, he’s pulled a Wolverine from X-men
Days of Future Past to try to erase our memories of Terminator 3 and Salvation
- an idea that was also borrowed from J.J. Abram’s 2009 Star Trek movie. Even
though this also removes the events of the James Cameron films from the cannon,
Genisys still works hard of reminding us of these gems.
Game of Thrones
Director Alan Taylor has done a great job of lovingly recreating some of the
key sequences from James Cameron’s original film, so much so that I had to go
back to the original just to make sure that they weren’t just replaying the
first film. Another thing that Taylor has done well here is finding balance
between the action and humour. Whereas Terminator 3 went too hard on the comedy
and Salvation went too heavy on the gritty seriousness, Taylor has found the
balance that made Judgment Day so appealing.
Schwarzenegger
plays the Terminator as well as he has done in previous films but this time
there is even more humanity to his character by playing a father-figure to
Sarah Connor, even if it feels a little creepy when she calls him “Pops.” He
has some nice moments that really feel like this could be his swan song, which
makes this film a better send-off than Terminator 3 ever could have been. Game
of Thrones Emilia Clarke plays Sarah Connor and to her credit she has managed
to portray both sides of Linda Hamilton’s depictions across her two films
showing both vulnerability and strength where needed. Then there’s Jai
Courtney...
Now look, this guy
must have some serious dirt on someone in Hollywood, because that is the only
logical explanation for why he keeps getting such big roles. He hasn’t even
attempted to emulate Michael Biehn’s portrayal in any way shape or form and his
performance just saps any possible chemistry Kyle and Sarah could have out of
the film. Michael Biehn brought such pain to the role of Kyle Reese and you can
feel the heartache in his voice when he confesses to traveling back in time for
love, here, Jai Courtney makes it sound like he’s just delivering a pizza or
installing a light bulb.
The rest of the
cast are rounded off in mostly thankless supporting roles that serve very
little towards the overall plot or momentum of the narrative. Beside Jason
Clarke playing the fourth depiction of John Connor, we have Byung-hun Lee
playing the new T-1000 for the sole purpose of appealing to the Korean market
for all of five minutes. We have J.K. Simmons playing a detective who helps our
key cast and provides the occasional laugh and then we have Doctor Who’s Matt
Smith in a role that is important to the story, but to be fair, does not make
good use of his skills and could have easily have been played by anyone else.
The movie does
have some good action sequences and does well at repurposing some of the
classic lines from the original two films but this is far from a perfect film.
As I said, the action is good, but mostly through CGI enhancements. What made
Cameron’s originals so thrilling was that you could tell that they were flying
helicopters through low tunnels and flipping trucks on their sides with
stuntmen holding on for dear life. Once again, battle-damaged CGI Arnie never
looks as impressive as the make-up jobs you used to get from the Stan Winston
Workshop. Outside of this, there are massive plot holes, confusing character
motivations and so many head scratching time paradoxes that trying to find a
starting point for how the ‘timey-whimey‘ stuff all began will likely cause an
aneurysm.
The big twist of
the movie would have been fantastic to see on the big screen had the marketing
department not screwed the pooch on that one, but it’s not the first time the
Terminator franchise has done that: Judgment Day revealed that Arnie was a good
guy in trailers back in 91 and Salvation showed us that Sam Worthington was a
Terminator long before the official release. My big issue with this type of
marketing is that the films are always presented like this will be a big and
unexpected reveal, but spoiling the fact that John Connor is now a Terminator
in the trailer just makes you wonder why he didn’t reveal himself sooner
considering the audience already knew he was the villain.
In a box office
season filled with film franchises returning from the dead, Terminator Genisys
falls more in line with Jurassic World than Mad Max Fury Road but if you’re a
true Arnie fan then I don’t think you’ll care either way.
Terminator Genisys get Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five
warnings to not install tat next ‘killer App’ on your phones)
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