Hi, my name is Christie and I’m a movie addict. Hi, Christie. That Guy and I have a tradition of going to the movies over the July 4th weekend and seeing an action movie, and this year our options were either to see Jurassic World, which we had already seen, or Terminator: Genisys. We went in forewarned, having looked at the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic reviews, and went in with appropriately lowered expectations. And Matt Smith! JK Simmons! It has to be decent, right?
Within those parameters, it was actually a decent movie. Yes, it completely throws out the previous Terminator movies- but you knew that to begin with, especially if you had seen any of the trailers (the marketing people need to be called to task, because one of the major twists were blown in the trailers). They had to in order to have any hope to reboot the series. The original Terminator was released in 1984, landing 21st in the yearly ranking, behind by Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, Gremlins and Bachelor Party. And even though opening weekend it got spanked by Jurassic World and Inside Out, it’s making big bucks overseas.
The whole premise of Terminator: Genisys is that somehow Skynet has found a way to mess with the timeline that we all know, and because of that, Sarah and Kyle are fighting a completely new threat. Instead of saving Sarah from the T-800 (the original young Arnold), Sarah is running around with an older Arnold Terminator, saving Kyle and themselves from a T-1000, originally introduced in 1991 (Terminator 2: Judgement Day) but now shows up in the altered 1984. If you have seen the trailers, you know that somehow Skynet has also done something to John, and turned him into a hybrid terminator, and Kyle and Sarah have to figure out what happened, and work to stop Skynet from releasing itself and it’s evil plan in 2018. There are aspects that work really well, aspects that don’t, and aspects that you just have to completely ignore in order to buy into the movie. As with most big budget movies, stay through to at least the middle credits as there’s a teaser trailer that leads to the sequels that are tentatively scheduled for May 2017 and June 2018.
On the bright side, Terminator: Genisys seemed to acknowledge that NO ONE was there to watch Arnold’s acting, and decided to capitalize on that fact by using his character as the ‘straight man’ to lighten the mood.
Emilia Clark’s Sarah is a refreshing change from 1984’s Sarah, being in the vein of contemporary heroine and dressed with cleavage to spare. However, there is a constant harping on her destiny of being John Connor’s mother, and how she’s determined to fight it that after a while it just gets annoying especially when at the end it seems she’s changed her mind about parts of it.
Jai Courtney seemed to really shine in Terminator: Genisys. Having seen him in supporting roles in the Divergent series, he’s definitely proven that he can carry an action movie, and draw your eye to the screen. It is definitely not his fault that the premise and script doesn’t live up to his acting.
The biggest twist that Terminator: Genisys has going for it Matt Smith and the role that he plays within the movie- carefully hidden from cameras, journalists, and everyone to the point of not even listing his character’s role within the script, he’s a completely wonderful addition to the Terminator pantheon- it’s actually a disappointment that he has such little screen time given the hype.
To me, it really seemed like the writers got together and wanted to throw together some of the better parts of other franchises:
- alternate timelines from Star Trek reboot and Back to the Future
- nanobots from GI Joe: Rise of Cobra
- grab the Doctor Who younger generation by casting Matt Smith from watching Nightmare in Silver
- keep the Terminator fans by throwing in not only Arnold but various Terminator trivia (such as having Danny Dyson from Terminator 2: Judgement Day being the computer genius of Cyberdyne in 2018, following his father’s footsteps in 1991)
And there are tons of plot holes left open for the sequels that are planned:
- Who sent Pops back to save Sarah in the first place?
- How did Skynet create a human hybrid with nanobots?
- How is John still alive in 2029 if Kyle and Sarah didn’t have a kid in 1984?
- How is the future affected if Kyle and Sarah are now in 2018?
- What big point will Detective O’Brian (JK Simmons play) since someone actually BELIEVES Sarah?
- Where are the other T-1000s that were being constructed during the movie in 2018?
- If Genisys is a program, why couldn’t it clone itself?
- John had ahold of Sarah during one of the fight sequences near the end of the film, and That Guy swears he saw that his fingers switch and inject her with something. If Skynet can take over and turn John, what if John injected Sarah with passive nanobots?
- The Genisys software is already out there, what is to stop Skynet from picking up where it left off?
- Why was it building a time machine in 2018 in the first place if it was already there?
Did you see Terminator: Genisys? What do you think?