Terminator Genisys





I... Jesus Christ, I didn't hate it.

It's not great. It's not even very good. But the Guardian/Sarah story works. John Connor works (Jason Clarke is easily the best take on the character we've had -- he's a complete 180° from Christian Bale's emotionless bore). Even a decent chunk of the absurdly stupid humor works (Cops theme in a movie? Awful. Arnold/Terminator smiling during his mugshot? Awful. Put them together? Somehow it works).

Really, the whole film is Jai Courtney. Not terrible, just bland. But when you focus on the good times, you leave happy.

I'm ignoring a ton of really bad shit, but...

I'd actually welcome a sequel.

The book is better.

Emilia Clarke's butt looks good on that poster.

Great minds think alike

There is so much to hate and love about this film at the same time. I need a day.

I can't think of a single thing to love about it.

Well consider me suprirsed... I actually quite enjoyed it lol. It was entertaining throughout, which is all I wanted so I was pretty satisfied with it. I don't think it deserves the awful reviews, I thought it was a lot more fun than another summer blockbuster... *whistles*

and... oh at this coming from the director of Thor The Dark World. Even more surprised by how much I enjoyed this.

I mean it's an alright movie but yeah there is nothing really great about it. It is just barely passable. Better than Age of Ultron though.

Maybe it's because my expectations were at rock bottom, but I had fun. It's a step down from the first two, but who was realistically expecting it to be as good as those two.

***½ (B+)

One question though.

That flashback was cut to shit for some reason. It was a trap set by the T-1000 -- it blew up the house, then it came out of the lake to kill Sarah. The Guardian used the rocket launcher to fight off the T-1000.

Yeah, not explained at all outside of a few words, but the T1000 in the film was there for 11+ years

Ah, okay. Makes sense.

All I can say is meh. It could have been so much worse, but because of such lowered expectations it manages to be somewhat entertaining. Still it's nothing special and honestly I kind of prefer the action, set pieces from T3/T4 more. The movies themselves might not have been great, but they were definitely more practical and I just wasn't that into the whole over the top, Marvelesque crap we got here, especially that horrible helicopter chase towards the end. None of it felt like it belonged in a Terminator film and to make matters worse the action sequences are pretty damn short aswell. As for the cast, Arnie comes out the least scathed and has more personality than any of the human characters which is sad. Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney are poor substitutes for Hamilton/Biehn with one being really annoying and whiney at times and the other being one of the most bland, uninteresting leads in a while. Speaking of bland I was also disappointed with Jason Clarke's performance as John Connor. As much as people rag on Salvation atleast Bale had some kind of onscreen presence in that movie and showed emotion, but here Clarke makes the same facial expressions throughout the whole thing whether or not he's a human or a terminator. J.K. Simmons cop role was pointless, Byung-hun Lee is there and then quickly dispatched of, and anybody could have played Matt Smith's brief part.

I liked the first 10-15 minutes the most with the future scenes, because the battles actually looked cool visually the effects were great, but other than that and a few neat little twists they added I really don't see much to recommend here.

Silly and stupid but mildly entertaining, I suppose.

C

The Terminator—so compact, frightening, and inventive—and Terminator 2: Judgment Day—a vastly ambitious sequel with game-changing digital F/X—remain this iconic franchise's dual zenith, but the fifth outing, almost-reboot Terminator Genisys, is far and away the best entry of the post-James Cameron era, and I am a bit perplexed by the scathing notices critics have given it. The story begins at the same point as the original, and it is a scenario so deeply ingrained in popular culture as to be a type of modern myth: Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), a soldier in a future war waged by man against machine, time travels to the 1980s to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), the mother of humanity's future savior, John (Jason Clarke), when she is targeted by a robotic assassin disguised in flesh (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Except this time—"except this time" (or perhaps "except in this alternate timeline") is this film's maxim—Kyle finds a Sarah already combat hardened and under the protection of a benevolent terminator slash father figure (also Schwarzenegger).

"It destroys canon we invested in three decades ago!" people have cried. And it does, perhaps, but this did not disturb or upset me: time-travel cinema, and the Terminator saga in particular, is a strange and poor bedfellow for devotees of conundrum- and paradox-free continuity, and I sensed a nerdy, potent joy in director Alan Taylor's recreation and subsequent reinterpretation of key moments and visuals from the first film. In general, Taylor stages crisp and exciting action sequences. They are very much of their time compared to Cameron's more grim and grounded chases and fights—the chaos is dialed to eleven, and it can be hard to remember our heroes are meant to be in peril rather than on a spectacular joy ride—but there are still a great many flesh-and-metal flourishes, the ones which remind us why we return again and again to Terminator lore.

Schwarzenegger has a grand time returning home to his flagship property. The one-liners connect, even if we groan a bit as we smile. He is still a commanding and cool force in action, including fighting himself at one point. And he is even a tad poignant as he insists he is "old, not obsolete," referring to his character (the human-flesh shell ages faster than the computer inside) and his own status as a bodybuilder turned international film star turned politician turned actor again, returning to a much-changed pop-culture landscape. Game of Thrones co-star Emilia Clarke also impresses, replacing Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor. Her tough-yet-tender portrayal is of a Sarah in flux, halfway between the sweet, naive, big-haired student of the first film and the ferocious mercenary of Terminator 2. Jason Clarke exudes a convincing sense of authority as John Connor and nicely subverts it later—the screenplay's zany time-bending requires more than the heroic brooding Christian Bale brought the role in Terminator Salvation—and recent Academy Award champion and veteran character actor J. K. Simmons contributes a touch of scene-stealing pep as a California detective, another member of the roster of characters who realize the veracity of the stories of apocalypse and time travel and are regarded as unstable for their trouble. Only Jai Courtney, capable, but unspectacular as Reese, is notably miscast. Michael Biehn played the character in such a dynamic way: he seemed at once courageous, fatigued, melancholy, and verging on mad as a soldier largely raised underground and in constant fear. Courtney's Reese is far more generic: a standard-issue hero, too chiseled and without haunted eyes.

B+

Tiny complaint: there is a scene in this film where a car on a freeway seems to smash into a nude, disoriented Reese with almost no effect other than maybe a pained grunt. I can deal with plot-hole-shaped time-travel paradoxes, but this stood out as odd to me.

This is the most miscast blockbuster in recent memory.

Excellent and to the point review. I also enjoyed this movie very very much and it is way better than clunkerfest like FAST 7.

Totally agree. Emilia is trying to play Emma Watson while Jai Courtney is trying to play Miles Teller.

This was entertaining though. I really wish the trailers didn't spoil the John Conner twist. I equally wish that they didn't do it at all because its dumb. This new world just isn't interesting enough to keep up with these plot twists.

Did they ever say who sent Arnold back to the 70s?

No they didn't. Just like they never explained how the T-800 defeated the T-1000 back in the 70s. (a bazooka certainly would not do the trick)

The Time Travel, like deaths in Marvel films, is you can always go back and re do it and in the end its very repetitive.

I guess chances are growing slimmer by the day, but I would love to see a direct sequel to this.

I liked it. Nothing to add that better writers haven't already stated.

They didn't kill it until 1984.