"I'm old, not obsolete."
To say that Terminator: Genysis was dead on arrival isn't really fair. It was dead while it was being conceived. This premise was not going to work under any circumstance (unless at the end of the film Sarah Connor, portrayed by Linda Hamilton, woke up at the end in bed next to Arnold Schwarzenegger and remarked about the strange dream she just had... Sure, it would have raised some questions, but at least it would have been entertaining). For Terminator fans, myself included, there’s no easy way to say it: our franchise started at the highest of highs and has since been at the lowest of lows. The Terminator? A masterpiece of low-budget sci-fi/horror filmmaking. Terminator 2: Judgment Day? One of the greatest action spectacles of all time, and it helped revolutionized the visual effects industry. This second entry in James Cameron's masterful film series about an Austrian, body-building robot sent back from the future to kill a waitress concludes so wonderfully. So Terminator 3 and Terminator: Salvation are unnecessary additions to the series (not to mention mediocre films in their own right), but at least they had interesting premises and tried to push the story forward. Genysis wants to reboot the franchise, work as a sequel, and create an alternate timeline story akin to the new Star Trek movies. Does it succeed at at least one of these highly ambitious ventures?
"Nice to see you. Get out."
The year is 2029, and the Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Skynet, an A.I. program that went rogue, took over the world's nuclear defense systems, and waged a decades-long war against the humans, has finally fallen. Just as the human resistance, led by John Connor (Jason Clarke), seem to have taken down the last Skynet base, they discover that a Terminator has been sent back in time to 1984 to kill John's mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), before he can be born. John's right-hand man, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteers to travel back to the same time and protect Sarah from the Terminator. However, when Kyle arrives, he doesn't find the timid Sarah he was expecting; she saves his life from a T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun) and apparently knows about Skynet, the future, and her son the savior. She know how to handle herself against Terminators, because she was raised by one: a T-800 (Arnold Shwartzenegger) was sent back in time to when she was a child and became her father figure. Now it's up to Kyle, Sarah, and this "good" Terminator to stop judgement day from happening, which more time traveling, gun fights, and Terminator re-quotes than ever before.
"I'm neither man nor machine..."
While it may be faint praise to say that the first act of Terminator: Genesys is not the worst possible version
of itself imaginable, I’m afraid that’s about all it has going for it. We finally get to see the events that lead up to Reese being sent back to 1984 in the first movie, which is the next logical step in the film series. From an art direction standpoint, the attention to detail is admirable when it comes to recreating some of the original 1984 set pieces. Some shots look as though they were spliced in from the first film in order to really take us back in time and relive the experience from a fresh perspective. What’s especially impressive is the way the original Terminator is brought back to life onscreen; the CGI-assisted creation is stunning when ’84 Arny looks at his surroundings in a very convincing extreme close-up. So hats off to the effects department and set designers, they really deserve praise for their work on this film.
I can’t give that same credit to the screenwriters though, whose output is damn near inconprehensible. The story, to be polite, is like a painfully stitched-together series of Terminator fan fictions; clunky in its conception and ugly in its execution. It becomes more and more preposterous as the plot thickens, with twists that don't make any sense, too many people building time machines, and characters that spend copious amounts of time explaining what’s happening to each other. The action is mostly shot in close-ups of the actors faces, totally removing any sense of fun, and while I mentioned the great CGI at the start of the film, it's nowhere near as consistent throughout.
As I'm sure it goes without saying, the cast was mostly a disappointment. Arny isn’t playing the Terminator that we fell in love with in T2, he’s playing a parody of himself. No one was going to be able to replace Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, but I will say this: I’m surprised that Emilia Clarke works as well as she does in the role. I almost do buy her as a mix between the soulless warrior in T2 and the innocent waitress from the first movie, which makes sense given the altered timeline. But Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese? He was playing an entirely different character (who apparently had way more time to go to Gold's Gym in the post-apocalyptic future than Michael Biehn's version). I love Jason Clarke, but he gives a terrible performance as John Connor, not aided by the cheesy dialogue he has to spew. The best performance has got to be from J.K. Simmons, who despite being given a criminally low amount of screen time, totally steals the show.
There’s nothing to get invested in, and not unlike Dumb and Dumber Too, there’s just something awkward about the whole affair. It's a movie made far too late in the game and serves no real purpose (other than it has a fanbase that will probably see it). It's boring to watch people explaining what's happening between chase scenes, and it's insulting to lay down so many nonsensical story elements the way Genisys does. The best parts of the film are retreading old ground, but the spirit of Cameron's original movies is nowhere to be found. If Genisys has a theme, it's that we shouldn't just make new things because we can; we have to think about the horrible consequences that the over-reliance on technology can have on us as a culture. It's good advice, no?
"I'll be back... tehehe..."
I can’t give that same credit to the screenwriters though, whose output is damn near inconprehensible. The story, to be polite, is like a painfully stitched-together series of Terminator fan fictions; clunky in its conception and ugly in its execution. It becomes more and more preposterous as the plot thickens, with twists that don't make any sense, too many people building time machines, and characters that spend copious amounts of time explaining what’s happening to each other. The action is mostly shot in close-ups of the actors faces, totally removing any sense of fun, and while I mentioned the great CGI at the start of the film, it's nowhere near as consistent throughout.
"A straight line... you just go and you don't look back..."
As I'm sure it goes without saying, the cast was mostly a disappointment. Arny isn’t playing the Terminator that we fell in love with in T2, he’s playing a parody of himself. No one was going to be able to replace Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, but I will say this: I’m surprised that Emilia Clarke works as well as she does in the role. I almost do buy her as a mix between the soulless warrior in T2 and the innocent waitress from the first movie, which makes sense given the altered timeline. But Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese? He was playing an entirely different character (who apparently had way more time to go to Gold's Gym in the post-apocalyptic future than Michael Biehn's version). I love Jason Clarke, but he gives a terrible performance as John Connor, not aided by the cheesy dialogue he has to spew. The best performance has got to be from J.K. Simmons, who despite being given a criminally low amount of screen time, totally steals the show.
The future is not set... but thank God the past is!
That way the original films can remain untouched...
There’s nothing to get invested in, and not unlike Dumb and Dumber Too, there’s just something awkward about the whole affair. It's a movie made far too late in the game and serves no real purpose (other than it has a fanbase that will probably see it). It's boring to watch people explaining what's happening between chase scenes, and it's insulting to lay down so many nonsensical story elements the way Genisys does. The best parts of the film are retreading old ground, but the spirit of Cameron's original movies is nowhere to be found. If Genisys has a theme, it's that we shouldn't just make new things because we can; we have to think about the horrible consequences that the over-reliance on technology can have on us as a culture. It's good advice, no?
2/10
