Review of Terminator Genisys (2015) by Daniel J — 07 May 2016

I really wanted to like this film, I really did! I even managed to shake of the fact that this is what, the 4th different actor we've seen play John Connor? I understand it is a reboot of course, but it's just jumped a tad too far for me. The series has finally gone full circle, sending Kyle back in time to save Sarah, but something changes the timeline! What we're left with is a completely remastered version of the original movie, combined with small remastered chunks of the 2nd and third movie. What we're actually left with is a muddled up mess of three movies worth of inspiration all vying for time in a movie that cant decide whether it is an homage to the original films or it's own franchise. All of this doesn't leave much time for a story-line I'm afraid. If you're going to tell a story this complicated, you better do a damn good job of explaining it, and give plenty of time between the action sequences for the viewer to come to terms with it. Something the original Terminator 1 and 2 did amazingly. Unfortunately, this film spends a good 15 minutes setting up the inevitable "We need to send Kyle to protect Sarah" story-line, then just completely shifts gears to Sarah and a Terminator saving Kyle! From then on we're not really offered much in the way of an explanation about what is actually happening, any explanations that we are given are provided in around a minutes worth of dialogue and spread out between the massive chunks of action this move has to offer.

Still, I like the cast. I think they did the best they could do with what they had to work with. Much of the action failed or felt like you'd seen it before, but their was a good final battle between the Terminators that I thoroughly enjoyed. All in all, I will probably watch the 2nd in this "trilogy", but it will no doubt be on a night when I've got nothing better to do and purely because I hope it sheds some light on the first!