“Terminator Genisys”: Review of T5

The Terminator franchise has always been a favorite of mine.  Murderous Cyborgs from the future are compelling, especially when you add in the right amount of boy-meets-girl and boy-and-his-dog the first two films boast.  I was slightly optimistic about the 5th film in the series, mostly because Terminator: Salvation wasn’t half bad.

I’m going to do my best not to spoil anything, even though if you’ve watched the various trailers and seen the lobby posters, there isn’t anything you don’t know….unless you never saw ANY of the previous films.

To be frank, the script for Genisys sucked.  It was probably the thing I had the most issues with, aside from a disappointing main heroine. Yes, I said it, Emilia Clarke was NOT the Sarah Connor I was hoping for.  Which is unfair, I understand someone thinking that, but I wanted more oomph to her and less whiny teenage angst/I do what I want comments to her robot adopted father.  Pretty sure they tried to cover the weak dialog with “stare intently and speak in halting phrases, it’ll make you seem more badass”, which doesn’t make someone a stronger character.

I’ll take Linda Hamilton and her frightening period hair over any scene with Daenerys Stormborn.  The movie honestly made me want to go binge watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which really gave the character her just development.

The forced relationship between Sarah and Kyle was….well, really forced.  I didn’t believe for a second these two characters had anything in the way of chemistry.  Which is unfortunate, because I like Jai Courtney (The Water Diviner, Divergent) and was mostly happy with his casting.  I’m not sure if it was again the script letting me down, or if this wasn’t the right role for him.  Also, if any of you Whovians out there are hoping for some really awesome Matt Smith scenes….this may not be the movie for you.  He’s in maybe one minute of the film, possibly 2, and has limited if nonexistent dialog.

There are times the shot-for-shot aspect of scenes we’ve seen before are really cool; the sequence with the punks up at Griffith Observatory, Kyle Reese’s naked appearance in the alleyway, and the department store.  I really did like the fight sequence between young Arnie and older Arnie.  Entertainment Weekly actually has a really great writeup about the T-800 vs the T-800, you can read it here.

If you can follow the near constant time babble, good for you!  It didn’t need to be mentioned quite as many times as it did, because most of the small audience I saw the film with was familiar with the premise of time travel.  You’ll notice I’m not talking about John Connor, and that’s because if you’ve seen the lobby poster, you pretty much know what’s going to happen.

In short, Genisys is better than T3: Rise Of The Machines, but not as good as T4: Salvation, and NOT EVEN IN THE SAME BALLPARK as T1 and T2: Judgement Day.  It is currently in theaters now.