TERMINATOR GENISYS is an ambitious attempt at revitalizing a series that many critics say has gone steadily downhill since the third film. Now five films and two television seasons deep, an argument could be made to whether there is enough story to carry a series of films. But buried within the fifth film is a clever concept of looking at the original two films in a new light while planting the seed for future sequels. How that initial idea evolved into this overworked and stupidly complex story shows that writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier either got in way over their heads or have not a clue as to why the first two films work so well in the way that they do. Sure, the film is about humans fighting robots and that alone should be “cool,” but TERMINATOR was once more than that. GENISYS can’t understand that, but even at a pure summer movie level, it can’t make an entertaining human vs. robot popcorn flick.
Even though the series technically exists in the science fiction genre, I’d argue that what these films are really about is anything but. Time travel and Judgment Day have always been background noise to universal themes, but given the direction of the fifth film and what I can assume of the already announced upcoming sequels, is now clearly the driving force for the series. The first TERMINATOR film is a stalk-and-slash horror film with a genuine love story that proves love is so strong that it can travel across time. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY shows a lost and out of control boy looking for direction and ends up finding it in the form of a machine that becomes a father figure – it’s a father and son bonding film. Considering director Alan Taylor and the studios behind GENISYS are ignoring TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINE and TERMINATOR SALVATION, I’m not even going to address those films. The fifth film struggles to find a reason to exist compared to previous entries other than just to keep the franchise alive so that studio executives can make money off fan nostalgia.
GENISYS rides the coattails of famous scenes from the series for most of the beginning. After an initial voice-over by Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) bringing new viewers up to speed abut how a renegade computer program turned against the humans, we flash forward to the year 2029 and see Reese serve as a soldier under the guidance of John Connor (Jason Clarke). The humans successfully take down Skynet, but not before the machines send a killing machine into the past through the use of a time machine to kill the mother of resistance leader John Connor. Reese voluntaries to go back to 1984 to stop the T-800 (yes, this should sound familiar), but when he encounters Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) she isn’t what he expected. In fact, all of the events of the “original” timeline are disrupted due to some sort of loose particles or some reason or another that is casually thrown out in a quick manner that is just as quickly forgotten.
In the new timeline Sarah is not alone. She’s accompanied by a guardian T-800 that she nicknames “Pops” (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Just as what happened in T-2: JUDGEMENT DAY, a T-1000 attempts to stop Reese from keeping Connor alive but new changes rear their head. The trio soon realizes that due to the changes in the timeline that they now have to travel to 2017 to stop an Apple-esque computer program called Genisys from being uploaded to a Cloud-like system over the world – a program that will eventually trigger Judgment Day.
Once you get past all of the fan service that is piled on at the onset of GENISYS, what’s left is a couple of miscast actors struggling to work with an overly dense screenplay. Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke pale in comparison to their character’s original cinematic counterpoints. Emilia Clarke tends to exaggerate her macho persona in a way that becomes quickly aggravating. Her attempt at capturing the rebel spirit of Linda Hamilton in T-2 feels completely forced. Courtney on the other hand lacks any hint of charisma. How he has infiltrated Hollywood as a leading man is beyond me given how robotic and emotionless he comes across.
The only actor that seems right at home is Ahhnold! Sure, some of his jokes don’t entirely work, but he’s clearly having fun in the role that recalls his robot with a heart of gold turn in T-2. Even Arnold’s overly cheeky lines that many of the trailers have advertised work much better in the context of the film. GENISYS proves that Arnold still has it. As the one recurring joke reminds us, “He’s old, but not obsolete.”
TERMINATOR 2 ushered in a new era of technological achievement seen on film. It was the first film to use an actor to motion capture a computer generated character – the results continue to inspire film special effects to this day. Seeing the T-1000 get shot by bullet after bullet and revitalize himself right in front of your eyes is something we hadn’t seen before. TERMINATOR GENISYS takes that iconic special effect and replays it over and over again through cheap CGI with not just a new version of the T-1000 but with a new Terminator hybrid as well (whose powers and technology are never fully explained but look like the material used in the kid’s toy where you add magnetic mustaches to faces). The idea of him being an unstoppable killing machine is still the motivating factor here, but its presence is overstated which causes the threatening aspect to dissipate. Instead it just adds to the overuse of cheap CGI effects that director Alan Taylor relies on way too often (including a horribly ugly and preposterous helicopter chase that leads up to the finale). One could play a drinking game to how many times you see a bullet hole slowly heal itself in slow-motion on the new machines and will most likely cry “Judgment Day!” and give-up before the film even ends.
Critics and fans will be quick to point out that the trailers and poster ruin a critical plot point that happens about two-thirds the way through the film. Yes, it’s a shame that that reveal has to be ruined by marketing in order to get people excited about a cool new twist in the TERMINATOR mythology. This is especially true because some of the earlier scenes lose some of their meaningful impact due to the knowledge of this reveal, but that’s hardly the main issue with the film. Even if we could travel through time and change the studio’s decision to market this major spoiler, fixing that won’t help the fact that the main problem lies within the very point of the film.
Going back into time and looking at existing events or in this case existing films isn’t enough to get by these days. Nostalgia can carry a film only so far before it becomes too weak to stand on its own. GENISYS has no strong Endoskeleton at its core. Hearing familiar names like John Connor, Sarah Connor, and Kyle Reese, but seeing them with new faces isn’t enough to hold my interest. Convoluting an already ridiculous time travel plot point from the original film is exactly what the film builds its entire foundation on. Then, in ways I didn’t even think was possible, they convolute and lay even more cinematic paradoxes upon it to the point that you have to just throw your hands in the air and give up. The problem is though, once you stop trying to connect the dots and the different timelines, there isn’t much left to care about. You’re stuck with two severely miscast actors running through time, trying to stop the future from killer robots. What bizarre future-world do we live in that a seemingly cool premise like this should be so tedious? Sadly it’s not the future… it’s the present.
Overall rating: 1.5 out of 5
TERMINATOR GENISYS is now playing in theaters everywhere.
