Thursday July 2nd in Sandusky, OH.
Between 1984 and 2009 there have been four Terminator films and a TV show but I'm not sure why we needed a 5th film. For the life of me I just don't remember sitting around wondering, "man I wish they'd make another Terminator film." Despite no one clamoring for another Terminator installment or a reboot, we got one anyway.
This film is an amalgamation of the franchise. There's a lot taken from the 1st film, some taken from the 2nd film with the 3rd and 4th films being kind of ignored. But not really? Anyway, the film opens in 2029 and a John Connor led offensive on the Skynet base in Colorado. Connor and his team arrive too late as Skynet has already sent the T-800 back to 1984 in order to kill Sarah Connor.
This is a reference to the The Terminator (1984)
Connor knows that he has to send someone back to save his mother, there is no shortage of volunteers but he chooses Kyle Reese, mostly because he's his dad (but Kyle doesn't know that part). As Kyle is in the magnetic field he sees that John is attacked and he has a strange memory from an alternate timeline. Then, BOOM! 1984. Director Alan Taylor takes on a nostalgic walk down memory lane from the 1st film as the T-800 and Kyle appear in downtown LA. As the T-800 asks some nice gentleman to borrow their clothes, another T-800 (though a bit longer in the tooth) is there to do battle. The still naked T-800 is disabled when hit with a few rounds from a rail gun.
Then it's Reese's turn to arrive and as he's getting his pants, the cop that meets him is the T-1000
Yep, ripped directly from Terminator 2. Reese is saved by the old T-800 and Sarah Connor!
Ta Da!
The trio escape and eventually the T-1000 picks up their trail into an abandon industrial property (what a surprise!), where the T-1000 is dispatched via acid booby trap. Then there's a series of big reveals...
- It turns out that Skynet sent a terminator to kill Sarah as a child in 1973. The event took place at her folks Big Bear cabin (Terminator reference) and she's saved by a T-800 that she's currently working with.
- They've built a replica of the time machine that had originally sent the T-800 back in time with parts scrounged between 1973-1984. All that's needed to activate it is the chip from the naked T-800.
- Sarah is going to go to 1997 to stop Skynet becoming self aware (this is a T2 reference).
Reese decides to reveal his big news, John was attacked as he was in the time machine and he's got a memory about an alternate timeline. He wants to go to 2017 and stop Skynet based on his vision. He feels that the attack on John he witnessed messed with the timeline. The Guardian (this is Ah-nuld's character is listed as but Sarah refers to him as "Pops") compute that this could be possible. So 2017 it is. Kyle and Sarah go through and Pops, stays behind, he lost some flesh during thebattle with the T-1000 and metal can't go through the magnetic field.
As Sarah and Kyle arrive in 2017, Pops is late and they're picked up by the San Francisco police. Since there is no record of these two, the cops jump to the conclusion that they're terrorist. Despite the fact that they're English speaking Caucasians. Anyway. Kyle and Sarah are escape with help of John Connor!
Wait, not these guys.
This guy.
However, when Pops finally shows up, he reveals that John is a terminator. John then explains what happened while Kyle was going through the field and that he has become a T-3000 nanomachine. The trio manage to escape and go to their hideout. At the hideout they come up with a plan to blow up Genisys. Genisys is this timeline's precursor to Skynet in the form of a universal app (developed in this timeline a time travelling terminator John Connor that will eventually become Skynet) that promises to link the world together (the story thread was brought to us by Kyle's alternate timeline vision). After a helicopter chase scene, everyone gets to Genisys and the final showdown is held in the chamber of the 2017 version of the 2029 Skynet time machine. The plan is the blow up the building before Genesys comes on line, In order to save time, the good guys win!
There was much rejoicing.
Where to begin? First of all there's just too much time travel. Some of it is explained and some of it us just thrown in there. Enough already. The film stuck pretty closely to the original 1984 film but picked and chose what they wanted from the other films. Kyle narrates a little back story of himself that doesn't mesh with his origin from Terminator Salvation. There was no need to have a T-1000 appearance other than to set-up the trip to 2017. There were too many terminators going back and forth through time. Who keeps sending them? Speaking of 2017, are you kidding me with the alternate timeline vision? There were cameos by Danny Dyson, the son of Miles Bennett Dyson from T2. He's a high ranking Genisys employee who's putting together the time machine. He's only in there to keep the Dyson name alive in the Terminator universe. We also get treated to a 2017 teenage Kyle Reese in the same time as 2029 Kyle. In an era where films suffer from a lack of story, Terminator Genisys suffers from too much story. All of it non-cohesive.
I also had an issue with the fact that Reese (as well as the other resistance soldiers) were are jacked up. Granted, in the military, one needs to stay in shape but this is a post nuclear holocaust world. Where are these guys getting their protein powder? Is there a GNC franchise that survived. Non-radiated food has got to be scarce but Reese looks like he's on his way to a Magic Mike XXL casting call.
The acting was good. Emilia Clarke was a very convincing Sarah Connor and even looked a bit like Linda Hamilton circa 1984.
See? The resemblance is kind of there.
Jai Courtney was good as Kyle Reese, he wasn't as good as Michael Biehn but he was adequate. It's also fair to note that Courtney never got that emotional scene where Reese reveals his love to Sarah as Biehn did in 1984. Ah-nuld was about what I expected. His performance was ok at best. Though you got the same jokes from T2 about him becoming more human and wisecracking all the time. He's Sarah's mother hen and his references to the coupling of Sarah and Kyle are underwhelming. That's not Ah-nuld's fault, that's the fault of the writers. The action sequences were good but some scenes were just over the top. Specifically, the bus scene on the Golden Gate Bridge and the helicopter chase scene. Again, too unrealistic.
I guess I liked this film a bit more than I liked Jurassic World but I really didn't like Jurassic World at all. There's a reason why Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 26% and why it's tanked at the box office so far. Unless you're a diehard Terminator fan, don't bother seeing this film at the theater. The overall experience is not that good. We didn't need another Terminator installment. No one asked for it. A straight up remake that stayed true to Cameron's original would have been fine but we got this instead.
I took a lot of notes while researching the franchise (it was 1 page) ad I'll write another post that deals with a ranking of the films and some of the problems with the individual films. Thank you for your time.
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