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Directed by: Alan Taylor
Written by: Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney
Swift shot: In many ways, this was better than Terminator Salvation, but a lot more difficult to swallow. With plenty of action and a few chuckles, Terminator Genisys lacks the overall emotion of The Terminator and loses me on how they pivoted a critical character to be less than heroic. You definitely won’t leave the theater for want of action, but that’s a given with any Terminator film.
Kyle Reese (Courtney), is a future soldier fighting with the human resistance against Skynet and the machines who years ago determined humanity was long overdue for extinction. His commander, the leader of the resistance is John Connor (J Clarke), who really needs no introduction. He’s the bad ass that organizes humanity and puts an end to Skynet. Or so we think . . .
Thanks to his mother’s training and rough-rearing, John knows what’s coming. He knows he has to send Kyle Reese back to 1984 to prevent the T-800 from killing his mom, Sarah Connor (E Clarke). Skynet wants to make sure John Connor never exists. And the movie sticks to that premise, at first. Kyle does go back to 1984, but when he gets there, everything he was told about his mission is wrong!
When he meets the lovely Sarah Connor, she is every bit the bad ass her future son John will become. She isn’t some hapless waitress; she is actually incredibly prepared for the T-800. Not only that, she’s prepared for the T-1000, the shape-shifter terminator that was the charming killing machine in T2. In this new time line, she’s been given an edge up by a protector of her own.
Unless I missed it, I don’t think they ever revealed who sent Pops (Arny) back to the ’70s, and this was very troubling as a fan of the series, because once Pops gets to Sarah, he’s got all the convenient answers for her life and her fight against Skynet. He is listed as “Guardian” in the credits, so maybe it was God who sent him back to the 70s . . . who knows? Regardless, once you overlook that painful omission, the film keeps you entertained throughout.
Director (in bed much with HBO?) Taylor does a fantastic job recreating the time travelers’ entrances back to 1984. Fans of the original Terminator will be amused by that, but once the time shift happens, and Genisys becomes a known quantity, you may hear a few groans as to how the story ultimately plays out. It’s a new threat, in our time.
It’s hard to criticize this one without giving away certain aspects of the film that need attention. One thing that doesn’t disappoint is the action, it is intense and ultimately believable, watching Emilia Clarke fire off just about every hand held weapon without flinching was remarkable. She looked at home in a fog of cordite. In fact, her Sarah looked like she’d be lost anywhere else. And, of course, Courtney looks equally at home running around and destroying stuff.
With a brilliant recurring cameo by Academy Award winner J. K. Simmons that provides comedy relief, you will find it funny to be on the inside joke that only he and the heroes seem to know. But, what they did with the new bad guy, the new unstoppable menace may just make fans of the series seething. Without giving it away here, you’ll either like the shift or not, but if you come to the theater just to be entertained (like me) then it is forgivable.
Terminator Genisys is quite entertaining, but will you like it? Only one way to know for sure, folks! I think I need to see it again to really grasp all the different sci-fi aspects, I am guilty of focusing more on the ass kicking than the story with this one.
