Review of Terminator Genisys (2015) by Jamie J — 07 Mar 2016

I mean headbutting a helicopter to death? Pointing guns at holograms? A hardened warrior woman scared of firing a gun? This isn't the Terminator I remember, and I think deep down Paramount knows it's kinda goofed.

I wouldn't consider Terminator: Genisys (I mean what the fuck does genisys mean anyway?) a bad film per se, but it most certainly is a wholly unnecessary one. Seemingly built from the ground up by a studio desperate to keep the franchise relevant thirty years after it was first created, and simultaneously dealing with the X-men levels of fuckery to the timeline left by T3 and Salvation.

Suffice to say Genisys doesn't do anything at all to rectify things, and despite the neat idea of re-doing old scenes from T1 and T2, albeit with a twist it never really feels like a proper Terminator movie. The casting was and still I'd my main bugbear with the movie, it feels as if Paramount simply went for a whos-who of who is fairly popular right now. Emilia Clarke is woefully miscast as Sarah Connor, communicating mostly through her eyebrows, Jai Courtney seems to be confused as to how he has such a huge role, and never once suits the space Michael Biehn once filled, and despite Jason Clarke usually being fairly decent, he is probably as far away from what anyone would consider to be John Connor. Shwarzenegger and an under used Jk Simmons are the saving grace of an other wise lackluster cast more suited to the small screen.

For all its numerous faults Genisys isn't a bad film, it has plenty of standard, safe and relatively family friendly action, but if this is honestly the best Hollywood can come up with right now I'd hope they don't come back.