Terminator Genisys

To be perfectly honest, Terminator Genisys is probably the best of the non-James Cameron helmed sequels in the Terminator franchise.  It has a really good idea at the center of its premise, and unlike the recent Jurassic World, it pays homage to the original without ripping it off.  On the downside, there's just no "wow" factor here.  The action, while executed well, isn't that exciting, and the special effects are mostly comprised of stuff we've seen in the previous films.  The whole thing ends up being a mixed bag, but at least it holds your attention.

The early moments are when the film is at its best.  That's when director Alan Taylor recreates scenes from the original 1984 film, and then just when we think we know where it is going, he plays with the timeline of the entire franchise, and throws something new in.  That's the advantage of having a long-running Sci-Fi franchise that's centered around time travel - You can shake things up and mess with people's expectations.  The scene from the original in question that the movie starts to recreate is the arrival of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator from the future back to L.A. of 1984.  With the use of CG and film footage, they have made Arnold look the same way he did back in the first movie, if not a little more plastic looking than before.  Like in the original, he has come with the mission to destroy Sarah Conner before she can give birth to her son, John, who will lead the human resistance against the machines that will conquer the world in the future.  After the Terminator arrives, he confronts the same street punks that he did in the original, seeking their clothes so that he can fit in.

It's at this point that the movie catches us off guard by having the original Terminator be confronted by another version of himself - the current Schwarzenegger, who is obviously older and a little bit slower, but can still be very dangerous.  This older looking Terminator (and yes, the movie does give an explanation as to how a Terminator can appear to age over time) was sent back to the 1970s in order to protect Sarah Conner back when she was 9-years-old, and has been helping her ever since.  This Terminator has been waiting for 1984, when he knew his younger counterpart would arrive, so that he could destroy him instantly.  What does this all mean?  It means that when the original film's hero, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), is sent back to 1984 in order to save Sarah Conner (Emilia Clarke), he finds a very capable and strong Sarah who already knows what the future holds for her, and has been fighting alongside the older looking Terminator for the past 10 years or so, whom she refers to as "Pops".

Now, all of this is wonderful.  It shakes up the very core of the franchise itself, and lets us know that the rules have changed so we don't know what to expect.  It's also fun to see Schwarzenegger back in his signature role.  He may be pushing 70, but he can amazingly still pull off such an action-heavy role.  Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke are also likable replacements for Michael Bien and Linda Hamilton, who played the roles of Kyle and Sarah respectively in the first movie.  When Kyle arrives in this alternate 1984 timeline, he is confused, and so is the audience for a good chunk of it.  It's fascinating, but convoluted at the same time.  He was sent from the future by John Conner (Jason Clarke) to protect Sarah, but instead finds himself sent to a past where nothing is what he expected it to be.  Sarah knows all about his mission, she's teamed up with a Terminator, and there's another liquid metal Terminator (Korean action star Byung-hun Lee) who's in the past, waiting to kill Kyle.  As if that's not confusing enough, all this messing with the time stream leads to some complicated plot points, and a lot of scenes where the characters have to stand around and explain to Kyle (and us, the audience) just how and why everything has changed.

The screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, for the most part, keeps all of these changes relatively in check.  It doesn't get too crazy, and doesn't mess with the established time line of the series so much that fans are likely to yell foul.  It leads to a bunch of action sequences that are staged well, but offer nothing all that new.  In fact, it's kind of disappointing that they reuse the liquid metal T-1000 idea from 1991's Terminator 2: Judgement Day, since the effects used for the T-1000 obviously don't have the same impact that they did back in the day.  But, it's okay.  Kyle, Sarah and the old Terminator seem to set things right, only to discover that the evil computer at the center of all this trouble, Skynet, has created its own alternate future, and has just pushed Judgement Day (the day the machines will rise up against humanity) 20 years from when it was supposed to happen, from 1997 to 2017.  So now our heroes must travel again into the future of 2017, and try to stop Skynet once and for all.

It's here where Terminator Genisys stops messing with the timeline and our expectations, and turns into a fairly standard action film that tries to make a point about our over reliance on technology.  We constantly have our heads ducked down on our portable devices, oblivious to the world around us.  And now Skynet has rebuilt itself as some kind of app program called Genisys that is set to launch in only a few days.  It is supposed to connect our phones, computers, tablets and whatnot into one handy device, but our heroes know the real purpose behind it all.  There are billboards all over the city that count down to the launch of the program, giving a constant ominous reminder of just how close humanity is coming to its end.  The action continues to be routine.  In fact, we get to see the Golden Gate Bridge get demolished for the fourth time in about a year after Godzilla, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, San Andreas, and now this.  It might be time for Hollywood to find a new landmark to pick on. 

Even if nothing in this new Terminator film feels new, it's made with a certain amount of skill.  The performances are fine, and as I mentioned before, the new actors stepping into the old roles of the series do a good job as replacements.  Schwarzenegger seems to be having fun revisiting the role that made him famous, and while he's not quite as impressive as he used to be, he can still pull it off.  And then there is that most invaluable of actors, J.K. Simmons, who turns up in a supporting role as a police detective.  He's here mostly to provide comic relief, but he does a great job, and honestly I wish the movie had used him more.  All of this works to the film's benefit, but the real problem that never goes away is that there is just not enough new here.  The action doesn't get your blood pumping as it should, and it just doesn't stand out much.  I wanted the movie to continue to surprise me the way it did during the first half, but it just doesn't.

A big part of this is not really the fault of the filmmakers, but rather the ad campaign, which has unwisely decided to reveal a major plot revelation that I think the filmmakers intended to keep secret.  This revelation (which I will not reveal here) would have been a very big surprise has the trailers not decided to throw it up on the screen months in advance.  Why do this?  The studio must have known that the fans who have followed this series would not be expecting this, so why not let them discover it on their own?  I actually think this did affect my enjoyment of the later half, as I held advance knowledge that the characters did not.  Whoever designed the ad campaign must be made to know that you just don't do something like that if you want to sell your big summer blockbuster that's designed to turn around everything that the fans have come to expect.

Terminator Genisys is flawed for sure, but of the many flawed sequels we have gotten so far this year (and "flawed" is certainly putting it lightly with those other movies), it's probably one of the better ones.  It didn't completely work for me, but I was never bored, and it at least seemed to be trying.  If you do plan to see this movie, please don't look at any trailers before you go.  Walk in without any advance knowledge if you want the best experience.

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