Terminator Genisys
 

With the conclusion of the post-apocalyptic war between man and machine, a soldier in the human resistance is sent back through time to protect the resistance leader's mother but finds that things in the past are not quite what he expected.

In recent years, it seems like there's been a bit of a trend developing in the cases of franchises that deal in science-fiction and fantasy - that of the "altered timeline" plot. Unfortunately, it's not difficult to think of this reset-button concept as a cynical ploy by producers and studios looking to wring more cash out of a franchise that has already run its course. While that was used as a reasonable enough justification for the 2009 big-screen prequel/reboot of Star Trek, more often than not it's used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for creators who have painted themselves into a corner with the previous installments. In addition to allowing for one more story, if it's handled in the "right" way then it can effectively revive an otherwise stalled franchise with the promise of sequels to the newly-altered continuity and so the whole cycle can begin anew. Terminator Genisys is the fifth film in the franchise and it arrives on the heels of two other films that both met with mixed opinions. The absence of James Cameron, who created the first two films with a clear plan in mind and who stated he had told all the story he wanted to tell with those two films, meant that other creators scrambled to come up with good ways to keep the series going. 2003's Terminator 3 was an extremely derivative yet serviceable attempt to bring the series to a close, while 2009's Terminator Salvation tried to kickstart a whole new series set in the aftermath of Judgment Day (see if you can guess how well that went). Terminator Genisys is another attempt to revive the franchise, this time with the type of time-travel plot that I have outlined above. Despite the doubts that had been cast by the previous Cameron-free films, there still remained a spark of potential that this would at least not be a total failure...

Genisys picks up where the series as a whole technically starts, finally showing the humans' final victory over Skynet, the genocidal computer network seeking to wipe out humanity. However, they get there just in time to discover that Skynet has sent a Terminator back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) before resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) is born, effectively setting the events of the first Terminator film in motion. Per the mythology, Connor sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time while holding back the knowledge that time-traveling Kyle is actually his real father due to causal loops and whatnot. However, once Kyle arrives (in a sequences of scenes that does its best to mirror the opening scenes of the original film, which only makes the slight differences stand out more) he learns that the timeline had already been altered and Sarah, who was originally an ordinary young woman, is now an experienced fighter thanks to the appearance of another T-800 (Schwarzenegger) even earlier in the timeline. What follows is a plan years in the making to prevent Judgment Day (again), but of course complications arise again and again...


Despite my aforementioned misgivings about the fundamentals of the film's premise, I didn't actually mind the end result too much. Compared to the last couple of films, it actually manages a degree of unpredictability thanks to its convoluted premise (while you could argue that a foregone conclusion was a point in T3's favour, it definitely worked against Salvation big-time), which can easily be picked apart piece-by-piece on the fly. The surprising nature of the altered past makes for a decent enough first act, if only to see how differently events unfold , while the decision to transplant the action to the not-too-distant future of 2017 and explore the ramifications of the altered timeline are of debatable quality. Genisys isn't especially concerned with exploring its themes even within the context of a high-concept action blockbuster - some lip-service is paid to the ever-present notions of fate and free will with Sarah having to deal with having her entire life more or less planned out because of circumstances far beyond her control, while Kyle has to struggle with the fact that the most important mission of his life has been rendered irrelevant by said circumstances (and that's without getting into his not-quite-flashbacks to an alternate timeline or the real twist at the heart of the film, which I'm not even sure I want to talk about). There's a satirical stab at modern technological attitudes by having the latest method of creating Skynet be the titular Genisys, a brand-new operating system that's designed to connect everyone's technology together (followed by shots of several people wandering around staring intently at their smartphones - how subtle). Of course, this is all just window-dressing to the main reason you're watching a film like this - wanton destruction carried out by robots.

On that front, Genisys delivers some fairly watchable set-pieces ranging from the small (a street brawl between a young and old T-800) to the large (a vehicular chase along the Golden Gate bridge). They might be reliant on CGI to noticeable fault, but I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that was especially awful and insulting about any of them, occasional notable contrivance notwithstanding. The effects work used on the various types of Terminator may also be lacking in terms of execution, but for the most part it's a reasonably slick and technically decent affair that conveys the machines' complexity rather well. Instead, what ends up being noticeably underwhelming above all else is the film's attempts at characterisation. While playing the Terminator's coldly logical diction and attempts to mimic human behaviour for laughs has been a staple for much of the series, combining it with recent films' tendency to joke about Schwarzenegger's age (which is incorporated into the plot in a somewhat questionable manner, plus his father-figure relationship with Sarah does pave the way for plenty of dad jokes). This does mean that the jokes tend to fall very flat, which is a shame since he's clearly putting some effort into his deliberately deadpan work here. While Emilia Clarke does a decent enough job of channelling Linda Hamilton, Jai Courtney seems especially miscast as Kyle in a way that no amount of gruff yet sensitive back-talking and combat skills can overcome. Jason Clarke continues the proud tradition of John Connors that look nothing like one another and, though he starts off being rather bland, he improves considerably later on in the film. Also thrown into the mix is J.K. Simmons as a police officer who witnessed the events of the 1984 segment of the film as a young man and has since become obsessed with Terminators - while Simmons is a good actor and the part is clearly intended to be comedic, it doesn't translate to any significantly effective humour.


As far as non-Cameron Terminator films go, I'm inclined to give the edge to Genisys for the time being, though I doubt it'll hold up particularly well on repeat viewings. At the very least, it's on par with Terminator 3 in that it's not a genuinely horrible film so much as a heavily flawed one that still manages to have its good moments here and there, and I appreciate its left-field time-travel premise more so than that of the blandly post-apocalyptic Salvation. It is still undermined by a variety of factors - the CGI makes for a visual aesthetic that is passable more so than amazing, the story threatens to be the most convoluted and nonsensical one in the series (and that's saying something), the characterisation is rather lacking and the actors struggle to make it work, while the proud Terminator tradition of making call-backs to earlier films for better or worse (often the latter) is still alive and well. At the very least, it challenges one's expectations enough to generally keep one's interest, though it does struggle to be consistently good about it. Though a scene that plays halfway through the end credits may hint at the possibility of a sequel - at least now that prospect doesn't make me feel that much disdain now.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

"Jai Courtney seems especially miscast as Kyle"

i had to laugh at this. I have no idea how jai keeps getting the roles that he does.

Me either. General disdain for Salvation aside, I thought Anton Yelchin made a fairly sensible choice for a young Kyle Reese. Courtney has the same kind of generically muscular brown-haired gruff white Australian guy thing going on as Sam Worthington. It's like they're trying to force another Russell Crowe* on audiences.

*yeah, I know he's not actually Australian, he just fits the type

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Jai Courtney must tick some sort of box like;


(x) females think he's hot.


Or maybe they tried to get loads of good actors and no one wanted to step into Micheal Biehn's shoes. Struggling to think of an actor that could do as good a job as Biehn.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Should have stuck with Yelchin. He did a decent job.

Yeah Jai is pretty much Sam Worthington 2.0.

Studios: Here's the next big star! *Throws Jai at us*

Audience: Nope.....

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Eh, maybe he works cheap.

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Jai entered into the Die Hard franchise at film #5....now he enters the Terminator franchise at film #5.

I hated A Good Day to Die Hard.

So I must hate this one....that's a fact.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Jai isn't a bad actor but he's never likable. So he does okay in roles like jack reacher where you're not supposed to like him.. but the other stuff.. i wouldn't have cast him

For reference's sake, I gave A Good Day to Die Hard because it's generic to an especially glaring fault. At least Genisys tries to do something different and sort of succeeds at it, presence of Jai Courtney notwithstanding.

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^^No way?

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

It was ok, I wouldn't go much further in any praise than that. I liked Arnie, thought it worked well keeping him in for the duration, but the script was absolutely dire. I wouldn't bother watching it ever again.

i am so disapointed after watching this movie, it has no feel, no sense of urgency nothing close to what the first 2 movies offered and most likely it is because of the digital era, it not analogue camerawork anymore these days, the appeal is just draining, this movie was just a let down for me, i had no interest to continue the movie at 1 h and 15 min mainly because of the lousy plot, no sense of urgency, man, in terminator 2, every time i watch it, the t 1000 played by the great Robert patrick strikes fear into me everytime he s on screen, the jerry goldsmith music was so good are right aswell, i could continue for hours how disappointing this movie is.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I gave it a 4/10 myself. Not the worst movie of the year, and surely an improvement over the awful Terminator Salvation, but it's still bad.

Didn't get a chance to see this in the theaters as I planned unfortunately. Definitely though purchasing the Blu ray.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Some people same to don't like it, but i think it was ok 7/10 maybe 8. I didnt saw all the Terminator movies but just by sawing this one i think i now what all the others are about.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I would give it a 7 out of 10 , real good popcorn movie, liked the crossing timelines. Reviews of the movie seem bitchy rather than objective.

It can be two things.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

There's too much going on in "Terminator Genisys", but it lacks depth in anything going on. If you are looking for good action and nothing else, then the movie delivers. As far as being a good movie,- it isn't. - average.

Just saw Terminator Genisys, it was......okay.
 

I was hardly blown away by it. Like so many sequals and reboots Hollywood has rolled out over the past decade (to make a compete list would take ages but some that come to mind are Predators, Total Recall, Robocop), im not sure if this film had to be made.

As for the movie, did anyone else find it confusing, especially with all the time travel.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

555, I agree about your comment and spoiler comment. There was so much happening that I couldn't keep up with anything properly. That's why I say it wasn't boring, but at the end of the day I had no time to take anything in.

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This is what happens when you try to make a direct sequel that's also a reboot. It just ends up twice as messy as before. A bad idea is a bad idea.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

This wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but it was also more frustrating than I expected because it had some genuinely good ideas. I think it would've been better served by developing one or two of them, rather than just throwing a bunch of new stuff in there without giving any of it the attention it deserved.

Definitely pleasantly surprised by some of the concepts, though. Great ingredients, undercooked.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I enjoyed Terminator Genisys far more than I expected I would. I didn't mind the film's big twist (would have been a big shock had the trailers and TV spots not blown it well beforehand), and actually thought that it could have been something that would have worked very well had they done a better job of setting it up.

Ultimately, though, I was able to enjoy it simply because it's always fun to see Arnold back in his iconic roles. The Arnold vs. Arnold fight was, albeit far too brief, a great moment, and I thought, despite some odd choices by the writers, the chemistry between Arnold and Emilia Clarke was pretty good and really drove the movie forward. Could it have been better? Absolutely, but for what it is, I can't get too upset with it, especially considering the two films that came before it.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I just saw it and I feel like maybe it's the worst Terminator movie in the whole franchise. People complain about how bad Terminator 3 and Salvation are bad, but at least they had plots that actually made more sense from beginning to end, where as this one is all over the place, that left me with more questions than answers.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

does anyone agree with me that jay courtney is just cringe worthy and was only trying to get in the pants of sarah connor XD
A baby-faced Sarah Connor who looks like she should be getting ready for a prom date unlike the hardened paramilitary character that Lind Hamilton trained like a madwoman to deliver in looks and performance. Some 8-ball headed actor trying to pass of John Connor,
this is my biggest issue with the film

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I think it's great. :p

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Kyle Reese getting into Sarah Connor's pants is the whole point.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

One thing that bothered me about the movie is how Sarah was reluctant to tell Reese that he dies after they get together, and they have a big emotional moment over it. Since they changed that timeline completely, the chances of him dying after conceiving John are no more higher than anything else, so she shouldn't be so paranoid that he was going to die, if they got together at all.

Sarah does this throughout the movie, and thinks, this is suppose to happen, that is suppose to happen, etc.. Where as she doesn't realize that so much of the original timeline is changed, that all that stuff from the first movie doesn't matter anymore much.

Also why is it that they decided to move judgement day to 2017, instead of 1997? I feel that they should have just stuck with the original story and kept it in 1997. Then when they stop judgement day, the post apocalyptic 2017, changes into normal 2017 of today.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

It s funny i think someone here said: kyle reese was acting as if he wanted to get laid with sarah , or it was the actor that he felt he was acting like lol.
My main gripe with this film is that the whole atmosphere and cinematography, there s absolutely no dread feeling, the music is just plain bad, the whole atmosphere will never equal terminator 2....unfortunately, that s a different beast directed by a different beast altogether

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I like "you can watch" as a pseudo-endorsement.

"Hurry up and see the film critics are calling 'technically able to be viewed.'"

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

its an okay movie i give it like

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

Looking back at Genesys, it's still bad, but it's kinda grown on me given that they actually tried something a little different with it.

I still think Courtney as Reese was a big mistake. Jai Courtney in any movie is a mistake though, I don't get why studios are trying to make him happen.
Going back to my original post in here, they shoulda cast Yelchin in the role again. He was perfect as young Reese. He looked right, had the right physique, sounded right, and the dude could act.

But, I think what gives Genesys some leverage in the Terminator stakes... is Dark Fate.
A movie so bad that it made Genesys look like a masterpiece.

T2 > T1 > Salvation > Genesys > T3
I watched Dark Fate once... and thought about giving it a second shot, but I only got about 20 minutes in. I refuse to watch Dark Fate again.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

1) Emily Clarke is no Linda Hamilton. Linda trained like crazy to get into great shape to be a believable female bad ass and be a credible threat and had the screen presence to pull it off. If the Terminator rescued her at a young age Id expect her to have been trained up to be at least equal if not even better than Linda was in T2. She looks too soft and baby faced (although she is loads better than the little girl in dark fate and i still burst out laughing at her wielding the large weapon at the target practice scene).
2) Jai Courtney is a terrible choice for Kyle Reese. The man simply can't act. He was ok in Spartacus but rubbish at pretty much everything else. He was too muscular to be believable in a future where I think most gyms would be closed and protein shakes unavailable lol. Michael Beihn was the perfect Kyle with his haggard battle worn and rather ematiated appearance and his scared personalty which was believable with Anton Yeltchin a close 2nd.
3) Arnie himself I'm sorry to say was too old to play the role anymore and since T3 had started the horrid trend of trying to add more humour into it which just didn't work.
4) They also made John Connor the villain. The less I say about that the better.
5) They had too much time travel in the movie. I actually lost count of how many time jumps there were.
6) There was no sense of dread at all in the movie.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

More entertaining than it probably has any right to be.


"We even have pants, Kyle Reese"

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

lol. reading moviefan555's spoiler text, I tried to remember if Connor had a thin-lined, black goatee like Mirror Spock. It's been a while since I've seen this one.

Also, @Tugg your reply on the top of page#2 had me confused for a moment too! I didn't realize you were replying to "555" and read that as Thai and thought wow, I had no idea you were Thai! They use "555" for "lol." I guess that's what I get for reading threads backwards. oh well. btw, I've cut out coffee completely. That might explain some of it?

:D

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I think the course of the Terminator franchise is probably more interesting than half of the films in it, at least from the perspective of production facts and curiosities. For most of its duration, it's been a constant attempt to jumpstart the franchise by doing something "different", but at the same time trying to bring in old audiences by keeping some anchors to the original(s), however misguided they might be.

The fact that it has been pretty much handed from studio to studio like a hot potato just makes it a "sadder", but also a more interesting story, again, from the perspective of production. Every single studio that has taken the IP has bankrupted because of it, forcing them to hand it over/sell it to someone else, which hasn't really allowed for any narrative cohesion at all. It's a pity.

I agree with this completely, and it's very elegantly put.

I am weirdly invested in the canon of the series, even while I find a lot of the more recent films extremely bad. Dark Fate was kind of okay, but none of them have been good since T3 (which is WAY better than it has any right to be, I'll defend that one to the death).

I kinda want people to keep trying, though.

Totally agree, top to bottom.

Bruh, you said that.

It was someone on another forum i just remembered lol

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

To be honest I didn't expect much from the film. As I have three parts of Terminators under my belt. And the creators have an excellent reputation for their creations. I mean, usually only 1 part is interesting. And the film is so well known that a lot of people would have gone to see it anyway. I myself watched it not in the theater. For a while I couldn't understand the point of the film at all. The film is great, the actors are well chosen, everything is great... But the highlight itself was missing. But then, looking through piece by piece, the highlight was found and eaten - yay! It got to me what we are being shown.
Watched the entire movie in one breath. Afraid to misunderstand every moment. Lest again lose this dried grape.

I agree on ur top 5 except i d put t3 ahead of salvation, it has a better use of music and pace.

Re: Terminator Genisys
 

I kept having to tell myself that wasn't Matthew Perry playing John Conner.