Australian Odeon
★★
The ever-declining quality of the Terminator franchise takes another hit in what is a noble but ultimately futile attempt to breath new life into a series of movies that should've ended in 1991.
The opening scenes of Terminator - Genisys (the spelling of which is not in fact a typo, but carries a rather laughable significance as the film progresses) see John Connor and Kyle Reese fighting side by side in the final battle against the machines. As described by Michael Beihn's (far superior) Reese in the original Terminator, upon realising it has lost the war, Skynet sends a Terminator back through time to kill John Connor's mother Sarah. Reese volunteers to go back and protect her because he fell in love with her photo. So far, so Cameron.
Terminator - Genisys
Director: Alan Taylor
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney
Upon arriving in 1984, Reese immediately discovers that nothing is what he expected, as there is already another Terminator there to kill him. He is rescued by Sarah Connor, with the help of -dun dun dun- the Terminator.
What follows from there makes less and less sense as the film moves on, with Connor and Reese time travelling forward to stop future judgement day from happening in 1997, only for Reese to remember something in his past/future that tells him future judgement day will happen in 2017 instead. The nonsensical nature of the plot could be forgiven if the film delivered in the action stakes, but sadly all sequences are dominated by law-of-physics breaking computer graphics. A helicopter chase between the buildings of San Francisco is almost entirely devoid of excitement due to the poor nature of the graphics and the ridiculous nature of the .
Ultimately the entire exercise is an attempt at restarting the franchise with timeline altering (if it worked with Star Trek, why not Terminator?). Explanation is given for why a Terminator looks like he's in his mid-sixties, the 2017 time jump brings us into line with modern day, but it's just not enough to justify it's existence. Connor's excited declaration that 'We can stop judgement day,' only brings on a feeling of deja-vu. Cameron's Terminator films worked because the innate ridiculousness of the premise and the paradoxes on which it was based were simply a jumping off point for an exciting action film.
Of course nothing will ever stop judgement day except for poor grosses.