Review: Terminator Genisys

Terminator Genisys is another selective sequel, like Jurassic World, that chooses to ignore certain sequels and tries to recall many moments from the first two films. Like Jurassic World, the screenplay never fully addresses the issues that referring to the original films brings up. In large part, Genisys rewrites the lore of the Terminator franchise.

The film starts as John Connor (Jason Clarke) has started to take the final steps in his post-apocalyptic war with the forces of Skynet. John fights alongside Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), John's future father here? They soon realize Skynet has successfully sent a T-800 (a computer-simulated Arnold Schwarzenegger) back to 1984 to kill John’s mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke). Expecting a helpless Sarah, Reese instead finds her a tough, battle-ready woman who has been raised by an old T-800(an old Schwarzenegger) named Pops.

Here is where the lore gets super messy. Apparently a T-1000 was sent back to kill Sarah when she was nine and Pops is who saved her. That rewrites the entire first film and most of the character arc of the second film out of existence. In doing so it renders these characters mere super-hero types rather than fragile humans trying to hold on to their existence. There is a potentially wonderful storyline here with old Arnold fighting new Arnold but it is reduced to a quick but fun fight sequence.

Schwarzenegger is fun as cranky Pops and Emilia Clarke provides a reasonable version of Sarah Conner. Courtney continues to be one of the least compelling and interesting young action stars around and yet he continues to land huge, iconic roles. Here he renders Reese into a dummy who waits to jump into action only when its obvious that he should. The original Reese was slim but resourceful and smart. Courtney only has his muscles to use here. 

Directed by TV vet Alan Taylor, Genisys is well paced and has some exciting action set pieces. Taylor can create on-screen spectacle and keep things going but that is not enough here when you have James Cameron's rich source material. By the end of the film, its easy to feel like the screenwriters wanted to undo the greatness of the first two films. They rewrite so much here that seeing those films might actually hurt your opinion of this film. I know it did for me.

3/5