Terminator Genisys

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, J.K. Simmons, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, Courtney B. Vance, Byung-hun Lee
Directed by: Alan Taylor
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
2015

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to save his mother (Emilia Clarke), but an unexpected event changes the timeline.

Review:

Tim: I guess I'm just a sucker for the Terminator franchise. While reviews for this film were overwhelmingly negative, I found myself enjoying Terminator Genisys. Yes, this movie clearly does have its problems and isn't the strongest way to try and jump start a new trilogy. However, it's still fun and throws some interesting twists into the mythology. I'd say this is a good movie, but is close to the worst film in the franchise (it's neck-and-neck with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines).

One of the most intriguing aspects of the film also leads directly into my biggest complaint. This film throws the mythology of the franchise in turmoil when Kyle Reese travels back in time to 1984, but instead of the events depicted in the original movie, finds an alternate timeline. That aspect of the film was great fun, as time travel always tends to boggle the mind. I thought it was interesting how the story played with our expectations and combined events from previous films. In 1984, we have the original Terminator, but we also have an older one. We also see the T-1000. It's all a little hard to follow if you haven't been paying attention to the previous movies. If you have (like me), it was legitimately fun seeing a different timeline play out.

That being said, instead of breaking new ground in Terminator Genisys, we're basically retreading ground that we've already traveled. Everything new in this movie is just a twist on something old. We've seen almost this exact same movie multiple times already. We have John Connor, Sarah Connor, the terminators, trying to stop Skynet. The big difference here is that Skynet is Genisys. I mean, honestly, it's the same movie recycled for the third time. This franchise desperately needs to give us something different. So yes, I enjoyed the ride here, but was bummed it traveled down a too-familiar path. That's one of the biggest flaws in this film. If they do decide to make more movies, this cannot happen again.

The cast is fine. It was fun seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger as an aging Terminator. This is still the role he was born to play, even if his dialogue is often weak. I like Emilia Clarke from "Game of Thrones", so I was surprised that I didn't love her performance as Sarah Connor. She had some truly great moments, but there were a number of scenes where her performance just felt forced. Her ability to naturally banter with Schwarzenegger is certainly in question. She was fine overall, but I expected her to be one of the highlights and that didn't pan out. The same thing can be said for Jason Clarke as John Connor- he's a strong actor and I was excited about him in this role, but the effectiveness of his performance was somewhat less than hoped for. I will say that Jai Courtney- for being an actor who is sometimes good and sometimes terrible- shocked me by being a very strong Kyle Reese. I might have liked his performance the best in this film. I give him credit, he was significantly better than I would have expected. J.K. Simmons is wasted in a small, pointless role.

The action sequences were pretty good. The highlight is probably the school bus chase on the Golden Gate Bridge. There were a few good scenes with the T-1000. While the action was entertaining, the movie was never as suspenseful or chilling as Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The Terminator there felt indestructible and unbeatable. Here, the story more or less plays out as you'd expect. This is the 5th film in the franchise, so it's predictable. There's no real sense of dread or intensity to anything you're seeing on screen.

I probably should have hated Terminator Genisys like so many critics did, but I was entertained. I acknowledge some serious flaws, though. I thought this was overall a good movie, but still a far cry from the best films in this franchise. The redundancy of the plot was slightly forgivable since we haven't had an entry in this franchise in 6 years. I do feel like the Terminator franchise is at a crossroads- if they can't inject new life into the next film and do something unique and truly exciting, it's time to let this one go dormant.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 7


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation