Quickie Review:
Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back to 1984 by the leader of the human resistance John Connor (Jason Clarke), to protect his mother Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). When Kyle arrives, everything is not as it used to be. Sarah and Kyle, in their quest to safeguard the future make unexpected allies and face dangerous enemies. Terminator Genisys aims to reset the timeline of the all the stories that have come before to try and bring a fresh new take on the franchise. While that is a good idea in principle, the execution of the plan is not a complete success. Arnold Schwarzenegger is still a great Terminator, and he is the highlight of the movie. There also some clever tie-ins with the previous movies. However, the action scenes were nothing special, the villain's motive seems lacking, and the chemistry between Sarah and Kyle was just plain annoying. Terminator Genisys is yet another let down in the franchise.
Full Review:
I love the first two Terminator movies, even decades later they are still amongst the best sci-fi action movies ever made. So you would think I would hate the idea of those stories being reset by Terminator Genisys. Quite the contrary, I like the idea of an alternate timeline because then the writers aren't shackled to what has come before and tell fresh new stories. Though they did take advantage of that freedom, the end result was not completely satisfying.
Arnold Schwarznegger, our favourite Terminator is back! I was a little concerned that they will keep making jokes on how old he is. They do point it out, but he is still kicking major butts in all the action scenes and still is that likable socially clueless robot. I also thought the relationship that Sarah Connor and the Terminator had was really interesting. It was a great evolution of Sarah's feelings towards him from fear in Terminator, to hesitant alliance in Terminator 2, to now a complete embrace of him as almost a surrogate father. It was as if they were paying homage to John's and Terminator's relation in Terminator 2, where Sarah contemplated that he may be the best father figure John could ever have. There are lot of these homages in the movie that I really appreciated. I'll leave them for you to find, but I recommend re-watching the first two films for the easter egg hunting.
Reading those positives, you might be wondering what was so wrong that I rated the movie so low? Well, I'll explain. First of all, the action in this movie is very generic. It's not that it was poorly shot, it was simply not memorable. Once again we have Golden Gate Bridge chase, Terminator being thrown through walls and windows, terminators taking on absurd amount of bullets as they moved slowly across the hall. Nothing about it excited me. Second, the constant bickering between Sarah and Kyle was almost unbearable to watch. I get that they aren't exactly on the same page in the beginning of the movie, so there will be some clashing, but this kept on going for far too long. Third, I'm not going to say who the villain is in case you managed to skip the trailers, but his motive was completely non-existent. He was just doing villainous things because he is the bad guy, that's it.
In the end, I can't really recommend this movie to watch in the cinema. Yes, it's bit better than Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation, but that doesn't mean it's a worthy sequel. Suffice to say I will not be back to see it again.
Check out more on my movie review blog The Stub Collector: http://thestubcollector.wordpress.com/
Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back to 1984 by the leader of the human resistance John Connor (Jason Clarke), to protect his mother Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). When Kyle arrives, everything is not as it used to be. Sarah and Kyle, in their quest to safeguard the future make unexpected allies and face dangerous enemies. Terminator Genisys aims to reset the timeline of the all the stories that have come before to try and bring a fresh new take on the franchise. While that is a good idea in principle, the execution of the plan is not a complete success. Arnold Schwarzenegger is still a great Terminator, and he is the highlight of the movie. There also some clever tie-ins with the previous movies. However, the action scenes were nothing special, the villain's motive seems lacking, and the chemistry between Sarah and Kyle was just plain annoying. Terminator Genisys is yet another let down in the franchise.
Full Review:
I love the first two Terminator movies, even decades later they are still amongst the best sci-fi action movies ever made. So you would think I would hate the idea of those stories being reset by Terminator Genisys. Quite the contrary, I like the idea of an alternate timeline because then the writers aren't shackled to what has come before and tell fresh new stories. Though they did take advantage of that freedom, the end result was not completely satisfying.
Arnold Schwarznegger, our favourite Terminator is back! I was a little concerned that they will keep making jokes on how old he is. They do point it out, but he is still kicking major butts in all the action scenes and still is that likable socially clueless robot. I also thought the relationship that Sarah Connor and the Terminator had was really interesting. It was a great evolution of Sarah's feelings towards him from fear in Terminator, to hesitant alliance in Terminator 2, to now a complete embrace of him as almost a surrogate father. It was as if they were paying homage to John's and Terminator's relation in Terminator 2, where Sarah contemplated that he may be the best father figure John could ever have. There are lot of these homages in the movie that I really appreciated. I'll leave them for you to find, but I recommend re-watching the first two films for the easter egg hunting.
Reading those positives, you might be wondering what was so wrong that I rated the movie so low? Well, I'll explain. First of all, the action in this movie is very generic. It's not that it was poorly shot, it was simply not memorable. Once again we have Golden Gate Bridge chase, Terminator being thrown through walls and windows, terminators taking on absurd amount of bullets as they moved slowly across the hall. Nothing about it excited me. Second, the constant bickering between Sarah and Kyle was almost unbearable to watch. I get that they aren't exactly on the same page in the beginning of the movie, so there will be some clashing, but this kept on going for far too long. Third, I'm not going to say who the villain is in case you managed to skip the trailers, but his motive was completely non-existent. He was just doing villainous things because he is the bad guy, that's it.
In the end, I can't really recommend this movie to watch in the cinema. Yes, it's bit better than Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation, but that doesn't mean it's a worthy sequel. Suffice to say I will not be back to see it again.
Check out more on my movie review blog The Stub Collector: http://thestubcollector.wordpress.com/