Director: Alan Taylor
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke, J.K. Simmons, Matthew Smith, Byung-hun Lee
John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Courtney) back t0 1984 to save his mother (Emilia Clarke). Yet when Reese makes it back he finds that Sarah already has someone to protect her – a T-800 she calls Pops (Schwarzenegger). Coming back to a past he wasn’t expecting, Reese soon realises that times have changed and so too must their plan. In order to take out Skynet before it begins they have to travel to the future and disable a system known as Genisys, while battling a dangerous foe.
I still think The Terminator is my favourite, but this one is actually a really cool movie. I liked a lot of it. The film begins in the future and we’re treated to some incredible battles between Skynet and the resistance. Attention quickly shifts to the past, where Pops has to battle a younger T-800. I really like how they put present Arnie and young Arnie in the film. To me it wasn’t jarring at all and seemed flawless, and it was just cool to see the two Terminators fighting it out.
The dynamic between the three heroes was good. I liked how Pops was deadpan and badass. Sarah was frustrated and showed hints of vulnerability, and she was badass. And Reese was likeable…and badass. The action scenes were cool. The plot, of course, was convoluted, and I’m not even going to try to work out the mechanics of the time travel. I think halfway through the film the screenwriters even gave up.
The trailer did give away a major plot point, and it’s something I hate, and I would much rather have not known it. The film is paced well and for an action movie it’s very solid. As a Terminator movie I think it’s the third best, and at this point I think it’s going to be hard to top the first two since any following film has to get more and more convoluted with the plot.
So Terminator Genisys was really enjoyable. It does what it set out to do, and it flows nicely, and it’s probably a good thing that they gave up on trying to explain all the possible permutations of the timeline and how it actually holds together with all the meddling. Best not to think about that too much.
Oh, and after seeing the film I found out that there is a scene during the credits. I missed it, but make sure you stick around for it.
