"TERMINATOR: GENISYS" (2015) Review

"TERMINATOR: GENISYS" (2015) Review

I have a confession to make. I am not a major fan of the "TERMINATOR" franchise. It has never been one of my favorite pop culture obsessions. In fact, I have never seen the "TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES" television series, aside from two or three episodes. But I have seen all of the franchise's movies, including its most recent one - "TERMINATOR: GENISYS". 

Directed by Alan Taylor ("THOR: THE DARK WORLD"), "TERMINATOR: GENISYS" seemed to be some kind of attempt to reboot the franchise's main narrative. In other words, many fanboys believe that the 1991 film, "TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY" should have resolved the matter of whether Sarah and John Connor, along with the Terminator/T-800 (Model 101) cyborg, had permanently prevented Judgment Day (the date on which Skynet, an artificial intelligence general system, becomes self-aware and decides to exterminate mankind). In other words . . . there was no real need for the continuation of the franchise with 2004's "TERMINATOR: RISE OF THE MACHINE" and 2009's "TERMINATOR: SALVATION". This is due to the virulent dislike of the two movies by many fans. But what these fans had failed to take consider is that director James Cameron had failed to resolve the matter and allowed the John Connor character to exist in the 1991 movie's last reel. Producers David Ellison and Dana Goldberg must have realized this, along with screenwriters Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier. Or else there would have never been a movie like "TERMINATOR: GENISYS".

What this recent film did was pretty much reset the entire movie franchise - more or less. "TERMINATOR: GENISYS" began with Human Resistance leader John Connor launching a final offensive against Skynet in 2029. Before the Resistance can win the battle, Skynet sends a T-800 Terminator back to 1984 to kill John's mother, Sarah Connor. One of John's aides, Kyle Reese, volunteers to travel back in time to stop the Terminator and save Sarah. This sounds very familiar, does it not? Guess what? The plot is about to get tricky. While floating in the time machine magnetic field, Kyle spots another Resistance soldier attacking John. He also has visions of his younger self back in 2017.

Upon its arrival in 1984, the Skynet T-800 is disabled by Sarah and the Guardian, a reprogrammed T-800 sent back to protect her when she was nine years old. Kyle eventually arrives and is immediately attacked by a T-1000. Kyle, along with Sarah and the Guardian, destroy the T-1000 using acid. Sarah and the Guardian also reveal they have constructed a makeshift time machine similar to the one constructed by Skynet. Sarah plans to travel forward to 1997 – allegedly, the year Skynet becomes self-aware. Realizing the timeline has been altered, Kyle is convinced that the future has changed due to the warning he had received in his vision. He persuades Sarah to travel to 2017 with him in order to stop Skynet. But in that year, a surprise awaits the trio in the form of John Connor, who had been transformed into a Terminator by the physical embodiment of Skynet, the Resistance solider who had attacked him during Kyle's journey to the past.

I did like "TERMINATOR: GENISYS". Honestly, I did. But if I must be brutally frank, the movie's producers should have dragged the screenwriters out of bed and shot them for creating such a mucked up screenplay. I have not seen this many plot holes in a movie since 2009's "STAR TREK". It was a mess. First of all, Kalogridis and Lussier arrogantly ignored "TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES" by originally stating that Judgment Day happened in 1997. It was supposed to happen two years after the setting for the second film (1995), but Sarah, John and the first Terminator guardian prevented this from happening in"TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY". The screenwriters forgot this. They also forgot or ignored that Judgment Day actually happened in 2004. They also decided to ignore the fact that John was married to Kate Brewster by 2029. She was no where to be found. Although Kyle Reese originally did travel from 2029, the Resistance did not launch its final offensive against Skynet until 2032. And as a slap in the face against the fourth film, "TERMINATOR: SALVATION", the movie featured Kyle Reese as a boy between the ages of 10 to 13 or 14. In the 2009 film, Kyle was in his late teens - probably 17 years old . . . in 2018. I can only assume that the screenwriters (and possibly the producers) wanted to ignore what happened in the third and fourth films. And yet . . . they managed to ignore what happened at the end of the "highly acclaimed" second film, as well. To make matters even more confusing, John Connor was sporting a scar that he had acquired from a Terminator . . . in "TERMINATOR: SALVATION". Go figure.

Another matter in the script that I found confusing was the vision that Kyle had received from his childhood. How did he know that the warning about Genisys had something to do with Skynet . . . or that Genisys was the beginning form of Skynet? How did he know that they had to go back to the year 2017? To that exact year? And there is the matter of "the Guardian". I am speaking of the original Terminator T-800 who had been sent back to the 1970s to save and protect a very young Sarah Connor. This happens to be one of the movie's major plot twists, since it never happened in any of the previous four films. The problem is that the movie never revealed who had sent the T-800 back to the 1970s. And how did Sarah spend the rest of her childhood, being raised by an emotionless (back then) cyborg? This movie opened a new can of worms that demanded its own movie. 

In "TERMINATOR 2", the Myles Dyson character (creator of Skynet) was killed by members of a SWAT team in 1995, while he and the Connors were breaking into Cyberdyne. If Sarah and Kyle's time jump erased the events of "TERMINATOR 2", this would explain Miles Dyson's appearance in this film. Frankly, I wish he had stayed dead, because Courtney B. Vance, who portrayed Dyson, was literally wasted in this film. And the movie allowed Dyson's son Danny, who was portrayed by Dayo Okeniyi, to be the force behind Genisys. And if this time jump allowed Dyson to remain alive, it probably erased the events of the 2004 and 2009 movies . . . along with the events of the second half of "THE TERMINATOR". Which means . . . John Connor should have ceased to exist by the second half of "TERMINATOR: GENISYS". Some fans claim that John's father was the guy Sarah had been dating before she met Kyle in the 1984 movie. But . . . considering the change of events (namely Sarah spending the rest of her childhood, adolescence and early adulthood with the Guardian), I guess that never happened. And since she and Kyle time jumped before they could conceive John in that motel room . . . why did he still exist in the movie's second half?

By this time, one might be wondering why I liked this movie in the first place. Because I do like it. "TERMINATOR: GENISYS" was filled with some memorable moments. I could not help but smile at the re-creation of Kyle's journey from the early 21st century to 1984. I also found the details surrounding Sarah and Kyle's journey to 2017 also amusing. In the TERMINATOR universe, one has to strip naked before making a time jump. Watching Sarah and Kyle squirm with discomfort as they strip and prepare for their time jump, was quite enjoyable to watch. It seemed very obvious they were attracted to each other, yet seemed bent upon denying their attraction. This attraction between Sarah and Kyle proved to be one of my favorite aspects of "TERMINATOR: GENISYS". In fact, I found the interactions between Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney more fun to watch than those between Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn, who portrayed the same roles in the first film. It struck me as emotionally more complex and heated. And when the Guardian's character was thrown into the mix, the relationship between all three made this film very bearable and at times, rather fun. This was especially due to a surprisingly lively performance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I might as well be frank. For me, the movie's highlight proved to be the relationship between the Guardian, Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese.

However, "TERMINATOR: GENISYS" had its share of some first-rate action sequences. I thought Alan Taylor did a well done re-creation of Kyle's original jump back into time. This became even more effective when the re-creation took a left turn with the appearance of a more militant Sarah and the Guardian. I also enjoyed the trio's encounter with the T-1000 (in the form of actor Lee Byung-hun) in 1984. And dealing with both the San Francisco Police in 2017 and the Terminator T-3000 (especially on the Golden Gate Bridge) proved to be quite exhilarating to watch.

I might as well be frank. "TERMINATOR: GENISYS" is not a perfect movie. I would not even regard it as a decent movie. It had too many plot holes for me to be comfortable with. And the movie struck me as an extremely clumsy way to reboot the franchise. As far as I am concerned the producers and screenwriters should have continued the franchise's narrative from where "TERMINATOR: SALVATION" left off. But thanks to some action sequences well shot by director Alan Taylor and the dynamic screen chemistry between Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney; I still managed to enjoy the film. Go figure.