Terminator Genisys

If it wasn't part of such a genre redefining franchise as Terminator, Genisys would be a perfectly serviceable action sci-fi. Sure the dialogue is clunky as hell, the convoluted time travel conceits don't ever really make sense and despite one decent twist it's a tad predictable. But hey this is blockbuster cinema and the action is great, the film rattles along at pace and the acting is genuinely not bad (Courtenay spending a large part of the film topless didn't hurt either!). But you can't escape the legacy. This IS supposed to be part of the Terminator mythology. Despite Arnie's best comedic efforts (he steals most scenes he's in) you can't get past what an inferior addition this is to join at least two of the most iconic sci-fi films of the 20th century. Whilst enjoyable enough in its own right, hopefully this will be the last attempt to resurrect the past Terminator glories.

The story starts a bit confusing, but after a short time it's back to business. It's a great addition to the series and it's nice to see Arnold back in this role. The special effects are not always the best, but most parts look great. The new type terminator is great, but the old T800 is still not obsolete. The story is convincing enough and can be the prelude of new additions to this series. I hope Arnold will be part of these. It's a pity 3D is still the norm in most cinemas. This movie is best viewed in normal 2D. It's dark en there are no special benefits in 3D. The movie gives also a good critical note about our dependency of our smart-phones, tablets and the Internet integration. Genisys might be more true that we realize ;)

Paradoxes puzzle and abound, contradictions, conflict, chaos all confound, no rhyme or reason to the madness, no method to the flatness, just concept caged confusion to astound.

It's all a bit cobbled and confused, inconsistent, quite erratic and diffused, some spectacular set pieces, the action seldom ceases, but the arc, the arch, the story's all bemused.

Arnie is back again in a Terminator movie, and while all the special effects and explosions are back in all their twisted glory - the story just makes no sense whatsoever.

It's really not even comprehensible. I mean, I tried and all. However the story writers decided to seriously complicate the plot from a "Back to the Future" understanding of time travel and fast forward it all the way to a "Primer" levels of time travel. The end result is an incomprehensible mess of a story.

If the plot is just so utterly jumbled - that even IF I were to sit down and motivated to even try to understand it - it really doesn't matter. The end result is a story we don't understand. A story we don't care about. A story about people we don't understand and couldn't care less about - because we have no idea who what or why anything is even happening. It's as if the movie wants to say "Things are going to blow up! Just accept it!".

Terminator Genisys is a pure example about how movies can ultimately say nothing about the human condition and for all the special effects effectively mean zilch - and be all the worse for it. There was some subtle theme about being too trusting of technology with all our connected devices in there but it was so limp-wristed, so pathetically tacked on, and half-hearted that it deserves to be ignored.

But by golly, by jingo, by jimminy willers, there were a lot of explosions!

The new Terminator wasn't terrible! I'm surprised. Though it had its flaws it was much better then Terminator 3 and Salvation... and I actually enjoyed it mostly. I probably won't be watching it like 30 times like Judgement Day, but its not like I expected it to ever live up to Cameron's work....

First off, the action was good and so was the pace, the film never became boring even with how complex the story was so it certainly gets points for that.

The film itself runs like the greatest hits of the the franchise which is both good and bad.

The pros: Revisiting 1984 (the first terminator timeline) was a lot of fun for obvious reasons.. You get more things like crazy manoeuvres from the T1000 etc and Arnie gets to kick some ass and even be funny at times....

The cons: How many times do they have to repeat lines from the previous films? Sarah Conner says: "Come with me if you want to live" Really? Again? Really? Come on, having that as an obligatory line in each movie is actually annoying. "I'll be back" is just like an obligatory oh, we'll just squeeze that in there, the audience will love that! Nope, not really, see in the first Terminator that had impact! Like the impact of a car coming through the wall! This is there just for the sake of it...

Aside from that, I think JK Simmons character was borderline pointless, you could nearly have cut him out of the movie and barely noticed! A crying shame for such an excellent actor.. Generally the script could have done with more tweaking, some plot towards the end just seemed outright silly, but I will say the chemistry between Arnie and Emilia was actually pretty good!

Overall: It's no Judgement day but you know what, it was actually a decent film and it was great to see Arnie as the Terminator again, and not saying "talk to the hand" . I can see why James Cameron endorsed this as the true sequel to T2...