Review: Terminator Genisys
Tuesday, July 7, 2015 at 7:09PM 
Tim here. "The best Terminator movie since T2: Judgment Day" is a statement like "Jai Courtney's best-ever performance in a movie": they both have the functional shape of a compliment, but they're not actually saying very much that's complimentary. And they're both true of Terminator Genisys, the little movie that couldn't over the 4th of July weekend, and is currently on pace to be one of 2015's most visible and embarrassing box office flops.
That's not... entirely... fair. It is probably the case that Genisys gets more wrong than it gets right, starting right from that ghastly title (it's derived from an in-movie brand name designed for maximum marketing impact, but that hardly makes it less obnoxious). But it doesn't only get things wrong, and some of its successes are genuinely worth the time it will take to watch the first half of the movie on Netflix several months from now.
The plot is a jam-packed muddle, but the basic strokes are that, in the war-torn California of 2029, human resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) is about to stamp out the evil artificial intelligence system Skynet, but before he can, Skynet sends an assassin robot called a T-800 (Brett Azar's body with Arnold Schwarzenegger's younger face CGI'd on) back in time to 1984.
Its mission is to kill Connor's mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke), when she was just a helpless 20-year-old. Connor sends his right-hand man, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to save history, only by the time Reese arrives, the events of the first three movies have so badly mangled the timeline that Sarah is now a bad-ass warrior with an aging T-800 named Pops (Schwarzenegger himself) as her protector and sidekick, and moved the end of the world from 1997 to 2017. The time machine she luckily has prepared for just such a situation provides their path to the future in the hope of stopping Judgment Day from happening, though Skynet fights them from two different time periods to preserve its existence and to destroy all humans.
That is literally the most concise version of Laeta Kalogridis & Patrick Lussier's screenplay that I could manage, which speaks to one of the bigger issues with Genisys: it wants badly to tell a vast, epic story, but it gets tangled up in the details. Ultimately, the only internal logic is a wearied "time travel works this way in this scene because we said it does", begging for our indulgence in promising not to think too hard about whatever the hell is going on. Around the time the story lands in 2017, the film has given up trying to tell a clear story, and has turned into a dispensary for action setpieces, which really aren't all that great; there's a lot of choppiness in the editing and the stakes are never clear on a scene-by-scene basis at any greater level than "try not to die".
Prior to 2017, though, there's actually enough that Genisys does well that it goes down pretty smoothly. The best thing that the writers and director Alan Taylor do is to present much of the first half-hour or so as a remix of plot points and specific visuals from 1984's The Terminator, letting the franchise faithful relax into the movie before it starts to rewrite the rules in front of us (those who aren't already invested in the franchise need to walk on by; this is a piece of unapologetic fan service so myopic that it makes Jurassic World look blazingly original). It suggests a level of smartness and creativity that nothing else in the movie really capitalizes on. But at least it's playful. And at least in the first half, the action sequences are a great deal of fun, however openly indebted to T2; the villain of the first third of the movie, for no reason other than "because it's cool", is a metallic shapeshifting T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun, an A-list Korean actor still waiting for Hollywood to give him something worthwhile to do), and all of the tensest moments and most exciting action sequences pivot around that character.
The other thing the film gets right is bringing Schwarzenegger back, and finding a way to do it that isn't transparently idiotic. Generally speaking, the human contingent of the movie is "fine": Emilia Clarke at times feels like a little girl playing at being a movie hero, and Courtney's strength in the role goes absolutely no farther than being perfectly serviceable and affable. But their co-star is a delight in his return to one of his great signature roles. An emotionless robot is hardly a showcase for an actor's sense of fun or comic timing, but even with that limitation, Schwarzenegger is obviously having a blast putting a deadpan spin on the corny gags the film tosses his way. The unblinking frivolousness of the performance and the role verge on parody of the classic-recipe Terminator, but with a film that goes off the rails when it takes itself seriously, a little bit of frivolous whimsy, even in the form of an angry machine, is exactly what Genisys needs to redeem itself into being at least watchable.
And certainly not more than that. One good performance (two, actually: J.K. Simmons is an unadulterated delight as a conspiracy-minded ex-cop, but he barely affects the plot) and some fun throwback action are all this movie has going for it, and that's really not much. As far as world-building and crafting a satisfying time-travel story go, Genisys is a complete misfire, and being unexpectedly fun on the margins is nowhere near enough for this film to live up to the standards of its predecessors. C+
Reader Comments (14)
No way this is better than T3. T3 is not a masterpiece but is quite good - waay better than the subsequent entries.
Jai Courtney gives a very good performance in the Australian crime film FELONY, opposite Joel Edgerton and Tom Wilkinson. Haters should check it out!
Any Terminator property not produced in 1984 and 1991 is fan fiction failure.
I kind of agree, T3 was underrated. It didn't hold up to 1&2 but it wasn't bad!
Tim -- i agree with every word of this review except the part about it being better than T3 & T4 because I think it's officially the worst of them now. I also appreciated its lighthearted jokiness (since i couldn't take it seriously) but where it really fails is not ONE not even one memorable action sequence. And it's an action franchise.
3rtful -- the truest comment you've ever made!
Steve G -- i'll have to check that out. I like Jai Courtenay. Or, I amend: I like looking at him. No opinions on his acting yet as i've only seen him in two action movies both of which he was serviceable in but no more or less than the other actors in both of them.
I actually liked this one. I enjoyed it's occasional goofy take on action yet ultimately serious take on the themes of cause and effect and the futility and inevitability of war. Clark was average, Jai Courtney proves that much like Sam Worthington he can be really good when he's not saddled with visual effects blockbusters (see also Felony and being the best thing about Unbroken for as short as he stuck around). I liked the visual effects, certainly less plastic than Jurassic World. But, ultimately, it seemed like a franchise film, a delayed sequel, that while being obviously reverential to its original eventually chose to create it's own (to use terminator speak) timeline. To craft its own take. It's not as good as either of the first two, of course, but I admired that unlike Jurassic World it wasn't just a lazy recreation, but a remix with its own groove.
Needs more Lena Headey as a future version of Sarah Connor sent back in time to tell the production that they've made the plot so convoluted that in the furture, the movie got turned into season 3 of the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Fun review! As a huge fan of the first two (I think the original is one of the best action films of all time and is in my personal top 5 movies of all time) I'll probably check it out eventually... The callbacks to those earlier great films also sound fun, even just from a fan insider-y perspective.
More than anything, this makes me want to re-watch Terminator and T2.
Jai Courtney shines in more ways than one in Spartacus: Blood and Sand.
This review entertained the hell outa me, and I don't even like Terminator movies. Terrific writing. Extra points for explaining the plot; the screen writers probably could have used you on set.
I just read your review of The Bicycle Thief--brilliant.
@Nathaniel: "where it really fails is not ONE not even one memorable action sequence"
Now, now, the slow-motion bus spinning around in the air is memorable. I think you meant to say "even remotely good or appealing on any level".
@Glenn: I 100% agree that it's better than JW - better a flawed attempt to move in a new direction than an equally-flawed retread.
@SusanP: Yeah, the best thing about this one was reminding me of how much I love The Terminator. It's definitely good fan service, if nothing else.
Paul -- so is what you're saying is that there is no reason for him not to be naked in this one?
I checked out of the movie the moment Emilia Clarke was cast. She has her occasional moments on Thrones, but given the fact that she often gets the best material/lines, and the fact that 14-year-olds were hitting it out of the park on that show on a regular basis, I still have no idea how she's gotten as far as she's had.
Very good movie the story follows, so you need to watch the early movies to understand what's happening. The Terminator has even a smile now. Action from the start right up to the end of the movie. 4/5 Just wanna leave this link here: Terminator Genisys
:)