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Terminator Genisys
Hello fellow MoFos! It is once again time for another edition of At the Theater with The Gunslinger45. I LOVE The Terminator movies! Or should I say Terminator, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Both are brilliant editions to the action movie golden age, and Terminator 2 is arguably the greatest action movie of all time. But as that era began to end, and Hollywood seemingly running out of ideas, the powers that be decided to take a third bite of the apple with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It was mediocre as hell. And Terminator Salvation, was simply s**t. So years go by until Arnold leaves the governorship of California, and he starts making movies again. And I am not cynical when it comes to an old Schwarzenegger in movies. I really liked The Last Stand, Sabotage was good for what it was, and I really enjoyed Escape Plan. But I was very worried to hear of a 5th Terminator movie, let alone one in PG-13. But I said to myself “Hey it has to be better then Terminator Salvation right?” Need I remind people I said a similar line when I was walking in to see Man of Steel. And we all know how that ended for me. And you know what? The results were pretty much the same here. I
HATED …
This movie! OH DID I HATE THIS MOVIE! Want to know how bad of a cluster **** this film is? We let’s find out and feel ALL OF MY HATE!
So the film opens up with Kyle Reese (played by not Michael Biehn, Jai Courtney). He exposits what we already know. War of the machines, John Conner is mankind’s last hope, etc. Well Kyle and John Connor (Jason Clark) storm a Skynet facility and discover the time machine that was used to send a very familiar T-800 back to 1984. John sends Kyle back to protect Sarah Conner; but before Kyle gets sent back John Connor gets attacked by Dr Who. No seriously, Matt Smith attacks John Conner. Anyway, Kyle gets sent back in time and shows up to protect Sarah Conner. But instead John is saved by Sarah (played by Daenerys Targaryen herself Emilia Clarke). To make things weirder she saves him from a T-1000, and we have two Arnold’s on screen. The CGI young Arnie (the original T-800), and Old Arnie (named Pops). Pops helps in killing CG Arnie and the Asian T-1000. Turns out Pops was sent back in time to protect Sarah Conner in 1973 from another Terminator that killed her parents. This T-800 has raised Sarah and trained her to kill cyborgs since she was 9. So the team plots that there is a way to destroy Skynet for good, but they have to travel to the future. And they can do so with a time machine built by Pops thanks to the new CPU he pulled out of CG Arnie. And they leap frog through time to the year 2017. Are you confused yet? Well it only gets worse. More on that in a bit.
Okay problem one is with some of the casting. Arnie is back? Cool, Arnie is in top form. Emilia Clarke as Sarah Conner? Awesome, I thought she did very well. Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese? Oh hell no! This guy does not sell me that he is Kyle Reese. Michael Biehn did that in the Terminator. Then again Michael Biehn is an awesome actor. I bought Michael was a hard ass soldier from the far future. I bought the relationship with him and Linda Hamilton. In this movie Jai comes off as kind of a p***y. Now he has the build, but not the mentality or intensity that Biehn brought. And Jai and Emilia share the on screen chemistry of Padme and Anakin Skywalker of the Star Wars prequels. I felt so empty by what the film tried to pass off as romance, that all I wanted to do was leave the theater and rewatch Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn share a tender moment together. And in a movie where we had to CG in a young Schwarzenegger, I was starting to wish they would CG in a young Michael Biehn. Or just get Mike back. That would have been cool too. It could have only helped the movie.
Second problem. This is the cinematic equivalent to the Terminator franchise of what the New 52 was to DC Comics. The continuity you knew and loved growing up? It is gone. Completely rewritten. The story of The Terminator and Terminator 2 are no more. They have ceased to be. They have passed on to meet their maker. Their a stiff! Bereft of life, they rest in peace. If they were any deadier they would be pushing up the daisies! They’ve drawn down the curtain and joined the f***ing choir invisible. THESE ARE EX… MOVIES! I mean I knew Hollywood were total whores for money and would sell their mothers to make a quick buck but dammit all the hell this is a new low! What was the point of making this new set of films? It sure as hell was not to build upon the old movies and if you were going to start from scratch fine. I would not be happy with it, but at least they would be starting their new continuity and I would have the movies I loved in a separate canon. But no… they had to screw around with that too.
Third problem? THIS MOVIE MAKES NO DAMN SENSE! I mean I know time travel movies have plot holes about what came first, but the really good ones can explain in good detail how the time travel rules worked and made the film easy to understand. This movie puts lots of BS techno and science babble into a blender and hit puree. And what we get is convoluted mess of a script. Point one: for a movie that is predicated on going to the past to save Sarah Conner in order to ensure John’s birth, they sure do abandon that plot element pretty damn quick. Kyle goes back to 1984 to save Sarah and unknowingly father John. Instead everyone decides to go into the future. WHY?!?!?!? You have all the time in the world to destroy Skynet AND you have a time machine! Ensure the safety of the greatest hope for humanity, THEN you can blow up the big scary computer program! Sarah knows that Kyle is the father of her kid (which raises even MORE issues) she knows John is going to be born and how important he is. So this entire plot point should cause a time paradox! You kinda need John to be BORN in order complete this new wacky and convoluted time loop. No John means no resistance, no resistance means no Kyle going back in time to birth John, and if you have Sarah leave 1984 with Kyle then she never gives birth to John, which means Kyle never goes back in time and…
What made the first two movies great was that the plot for each film could be narrowed down to a sentence. For The Terminator it was “protect Sarah Conner and destroy the Terminator.” For Terminator 2 it was “protect John Conner and bring down Skynet before it starts.” For this piece of crap it is “protect Sarah Conner, ensure John is born, but first we have to travel to the future, destroy Skynet 2: Electric Boogaloo, get Sarah to open up to Kyle and fall in love, talk to young Kyle so that he gives memories to old Kyle in a pseudo science time flux of lazy writing” and f*** it you see where I am going. This movie’s plot has ADD! And you know what kiddies… it only gets stupider. Because it is not the T-1000 in all the trailers that is the main Terminator threat. Ohhhhhh no… Because even through the convoluted script, bad chemistry, and poor attempts at humor… I did not hate this film. I did not hate this movie until we got to a certain point when the real villain of the movie was reveal. And it was…
This… is… STUPID!
Again… I ask WHY?!?!?!? Did the writers actually think this was clever? Who thought this idea was good? Were they on crack? Why would you do this?!!?!? I mean I know this is supposed to be a sequel / reboot deal, but you know what? Reboots are trying to tell the same story. When Batman Begins rebooted the Batman franchise, they told the same story, only with a few changes. Young Bruce still witnesses his parent’s deaths, still goes on to train across the globe, and becomes Batman. In Mad Max: Fury Road, Max is still Max, and he still kicks ass and drives like a stuntman. But the story is just told differently. Those stories kept to the same mold. This movie decided it did not want to follow that rational and assassinate its own mythos. Why? Because this script was written by monkeys! I am convinced that they have had 1 million monkeys at type writers since the early nineties typing away to try and write the perfect sequel to Terminator 2, got this script, and said “F*** it, this is good enough.” And there are other plot elements like how Pops becomes a T-1000, the PG-13 violence, no noticable practical effects, and how even though they say they destroyed Skynet before it even starts but you know that they have two more movies to go. So yeah F**K this movie!
As you can see this review has been a huge fanboy rant. Why? Because I love The Terminator. Terminator 2 has been among my favorite movies for decades! And this movie has to go and try to destroy it. Proving once again that certain franchises don’t need a reboot. We need to just leave certain movies alone, since they were already perfect to start. There are a few positives: a few cool call backs to the original films, Emilia and Arnie were cool, and some of the shots of them fighting the T-1000 was. But any positives that were in this movie were destroyed under the heavy weight of bad writing and fan boy rage. Avoid this film at all costs if you love The Terminator movies.
Terminator Genisys
Hello fellow MoFos! It is once again time for another edition of At the Theater with The Gunslinger45. I LOVE The Terminator movies! Or should I say Terminator, and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Both are brilliant editions to the action movie golden age, and Terminator 2 is arguably the greatest action movie of all time. But as that era began to end, and Hollywood seemingly running out of ideas, the powers that be decided to take a third bite of the apple with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It was mediocre as hell. And Terminator Salvation, was simply s**t. So years go by until Arnold leaves the governorship of California, and he starts making movies again. And I am not cynical when it comes to an old Schwarzenegger in movies. I really liked The Last Stand, Sabotage was good for what it was, and I really enjoyed Escape Plan. But I was very worried to hear of a 5th Terminator movie, let alone one in PG-13. But I said to myself “Hey it has to be better then Terminator Salvation right?” Need I remind people I said a similar line when I was walking in to see Man of Steel. And we all know how that ended for me. And you know what? The results were pretty much the same here. I
HATED …
This movie! OH DID I HATE THIS MOVIE! Want to know how bad of a cluster **** this film is? We let’s find out and feel ALL OF MY HATE!
So the film opens up with Kyle Reese (played by not Michael Biehn, Jai Courtney). He exposits what we already know. War of the machines, John Conner is mankind’s last hope, etc. Well Kyle and John Connor (Jason Clark) storm a Skynet facility and discover the time machine that was used to send a very familiar T-800 back to 1984. John sends Kyle back to protect Sarah Conner; but before Kyle gets sent back John Connor gets attacked by Dr Who. No seriously, Matt Smith attacks John Conner. Anyway, Kyle gets sent back in time and shows up to protect Sarah Conner. But instead John is saved by Sarah (played by Daenerys Targaryen herself Emilia Clarke). To make things weirder she saves him from a T-1000, and we have two Arnold’s on screen. The CGI young Arnie (the original T-800), and Old Arnie (named Pops). Pops helps in killing CG Arnie and the Asian T-1000. Turns out Pops was sent back in time to protect Sarah Conner in 1973 from another Terminator that killed her parents. This T-800 has raised Sarah and trained her to kill cyborgs since she was 9. So the team plots that there is a way to destroy Skynet for good, but they have to travel to the future. And they can do so with a time machine built by Pops thanks to the new CPU he pulled out of CG Arnie. And they leap frog through time to the year 2017. Are you confused yet? Well it only gets worse. More on that in a bit.
Okay problem one is with some of the casting. Arnie is back? Cool, Arnie is in top form. Emilia Clarke as Sarah Conner? Awesome, I thought she did very well. Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese? Oh hell no! This guy does not sell me that he is Kyle Reese. Michael Biehn did that in the Terminator. Then again Michael Biehn is an awesome actor. I bought Michael was a hard ass soldier from the far future. I bought the relationship with him and Linda Hamilton. In this movie Jai comes off as kind of a p***y. Now he has the build, but not the mentality or intensity that Biehn brought. And Jai and Emilia share the on screen chemistry of Padme and Anakin Skywalker of the Star Wars prequels. I felt so empty by what the film tried to pass off as romance, that all I wanted to do was leave the theater and rewatch Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn share a tender moment together. And in a movie where we had to CG in a young Schwarzenegger, I was starting to wish they would CG in a young Michael Biehn. Or just get Mike back. That would have been cool too. It could have only helped the movie.
Second problem. This is the cinematic equivalent to the Terminator franchise of what the New 52 was to DC Comics. The continuity you knew and loved growing up? It is gone. Completely rewritten. The story of The Terminator and Terminator 2 are no more. They have ceased to be. They have passed on to meet their maker. Their a stiff! Bereft of life, they rest in peace. If they were any deadier they would be pushing up the daisies! They’ve drawn down the curtain and joined the f***ing choir invisible. THESE ARE EX… MOVIES! I mean I knew Hollywood were total whores for money and would sell their mothers to make a quick buck but dammit all the hell this is a new low! What was the point of making this new set of films? It sure as hell was not to build upon the old movies and if you were going to start from scratch fine. I would not be happy with it, but at least they would be starting their new continuity and I would have the movies I loved in a separate canon. But no… they had to screw around with that too.
Third problem? THIS MOVIE MAKES NO DAMN SENSE! I mean I know time travel movies have plot holes about what came first, but the really good ones can explain in good detail how the time travel rules worked and made the film easy to understand. This movie puts lots of BS techno and science babble into a blender and hit puree. And what we get is convoluted mess of a script. Point one: for a movie that is predicated on going to the past to save Sarah Conner in order to ensure John’s birth, they sure do abandon that plot element pretty damn quick. Kyle goes back to 1984 to save Sarah and unknowingly father John. Instead everyone decides to go into the future. WHY?!?!?!? You have all the time in the world to destroy Skynet AND you have a time machine! Ensure the safety of the greatest hope for humanity, THEN you can blow up the big scary computer program! Sarah knows that Kyle is the father of her kid (which raises even MORE issues) she knows John is going to be born and how important he is. So this entire plot point should cause a time paradox! You kinda need John to be BORN in order complete this new wacky and convoluted time loop. No John means no resistance, no resistance means no Kyle going back in time to birth John, and if you have Sarah leave 1984 with Kyle then she never gives birth to John, which means Kyle never goes back in time and…
What made the first two movies great was that the plot for each film could be narrowed down to a sentence. For The Terminator it was “protect Sarah Conner and destroy the Terminator.” For Terminator 2 it was “protect John Conner and bring down Skynet before it starts.” For this piece of crap it is “protect Sarah Conner, ensure John is born, but first we have to travel to the future, destroy Skynet 2: Electric Boogaloo, get Sarah to open up to Kyle and fall in love, talk to young Kyle so that he gives memories to old Kyle in a pseudo science time flux of lazy writing” and f*** it you see where I am going. This movie’s plot has ADD! And you know what kiddies… it only gets stupider. Because it is not the T-1000 in all the trailers that is the main Terminator threat. Ohhhhhh no… Because even through the convoluted script, bad chemistry, and poor attempts at humor… I did not hate this film. I did not hate this movie until we got to a certain point when the real villain of the movie was reveal. And it was…
WARNING: "Who is the bad guy?" spoilers below
John Conner! And he is going to ensure Skynet is launched under a new name called Genisys
This… is… STUPID!
WARNING: "More spoilers" spoilers below
Okay so apparently Skynet acts like the Borg now, and the attack on John in the future was actually Skynet assimilating John into itself with nanites or something. Either way he is now rebuilt on a cellular level to be a Terminator and loyal to Skynet.
Again… I ask WHY?!?!?!? Did the writers actually think this was clever? Who thought this idea was good? Were they on crack? Why would you do this?!!?!? I mean I know this is supposed to be a sequel / reboot deal, but you know what? Reboots are trying to tell the same story. When Batman Begins rebooted the Batman franchise, they told the same story, only with a few changes. Young Bruce still witnesses his parent’s deaths, still goes on to train across the globe, and becomes Batman. In Mad Max: Fury Road, Max is still Max, and he still kicks ass and drives like a stuntman. But the story is just told differently. Those stories kept to the same mold. This movie decided it did not want to follow that rational and assassinate its own mythos. Why? Because this script was written by monkeys! I am convinced that they have had 1 million monkeys at type writers since the early nineties typing away to try and write the perfect sequel to Terminator 2, got this script, and said “F*** it, this is good enough.” And there are other plot elements like how Pops becomes a T-1000, the PG-13 violence, no noticable practical effects, and how even though they say they destroyed Skynet before it even starts but you know that they have two more movies to go. So yeah F**K this movie!
As you can see this review has been a huge fanboy rant. Why? Because I love The Terminator. Terminator 2 has been among my favorite movies for decades! And this movie has to go and try to destroy it. Proving once again that certain franchises don’t need a reboot. We need to just leave certain movies alone, since they were already perfect to start. There are a few positives: a few cool call backs to the original films, Emilia and Arnie were cool, and some of the shots of them fighting the T-1000 was. But any positives that were in this movie were destroyed under the heavy weight of bad writing and fan boy rage. Avoid this film at all costs if you love The Terminator movies.