Terminator Genisys
When John Connor, leader of the human resistance,
sends Sgt. Kyle Reese back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor and safeguard
the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline.
Director:
Alan Taylor
Writers:
Laeta Kalogridis,
Patrick Lussier
|
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Jason Clarke,
Emilia Clarke
Storyline
When John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the human resistance, sends
Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor
(Emilia Clarke) and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events
creates a fractured timeline. Now, Sgt. Reese finds himself in a new and
unfamiliar version of the past, where he is faced with unlikely allies,
including the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), dangerous new enemies,
and an unexpected new mission: To reset the future...
Movie Reviews
The
first two Terminator films are among the best of their genre and are
brilliant films also in their own right. Rise of the Machines started
the series' decline and had its faults but also had some good things
that made it better than its reputation, while Terminator Salvation
although with its moments was even more disappointing. While not a
complete disaster, the latest in the Terminator franchise is the worst
yet and sees a once classic series at rock bottom.
Are there any
good points? Not many, but yes there are. The best thing about
Terminator Genisys is Arnold Schwarzenegger, while more subdued than he
can be he is rock-solid and has the most intensity and charisma of the
entire cast. Despite not having a lot of screen time and being mute,
Byung-hun Lee is nonetheless credible as T-1000. Some of the scenery is
quite atmospheric and striking.
Everything else was severely
wanting. The rest of the cast are not good at all, with Jai Courtney
being by far the worst actor for Kyle Reese of the series in a
performance that is both insipid and annoying (which didn't entirely
surprise me seeing as out of the little I've seen of him he's always
struck me as a lazy actor with an arrogant ego). Just as much as the
anaemic Emilia Clarke faring the worst of all the actresses playing
Sarah Connor, who behaves in a way that you'd expect a stereotypical
bratty and vapid high school teenager to act but not Sarah Connor. Jason
Clarke is not quite as stiff as Christian Bale was in Terminator
Salvation, but it is still a shock to see the role of John Connor being
performed and written so blandly. The chemistry between them is also
barely there, most of the time it's even non-existent. JK Simmons is
basically wasted, and his dialogue and character are forced and out of
place.
The characters are like personality-less ciphers, with
none of what made them so memorable before as characters and no
convincing conflict, in a film that definitely could have benefited from
less characters and more development (which is non-existent) . The
script is overstuffed and confused, as well as tonally unbalanced with
overly-complex scientific jargon, cheesy one-liners (even
Schwarzenegger's don't work particularly well this time), misplaced
comedy (that's even more distracting than in Rise of the Machines and
used with even less subtlety) and too many ideas barely explored. The
story, as well as having a stitched-together episodic feel, is at best a
head-scratcher, with it being confused to being at times incoherent as a
result of doing too little with too much. It's also very dull, not just
because of the leaden pacing but because there is not much new and
little interesting is done with the ideas presented in the film and it
completely lacks atmosphere, thrills, mystery or suspense, and any drama
is both heavy handed and lacking in heart.
Direction from Alan
Taylor is lazy, favouring spectacle over depth and story and character
development. And unfortunately the spectacle is not that good. The
special effects are not terrible, but they at best never rise above
just-passable (the worst of the series in this regard, they are quite
poor actually in the beginning section and fake-looking too in other
parts), are used with little to no imagination, and there is too many of
them (sometimes in places where they were not even needed). The action
sequences are equally painfully unimaginative, are sloppily edited, are
leadenly and predictability choreographed and contain no tension or
thrills whatsoever, let alone any fun. It's very erratically shot and
scored with a mix of overbearing bombast and dirge-like drone. The
ending also felt incredibly forced and tacked on.
Overall,
Terminator Genisys was a pretty poor and disappointing film, and is by
far the worst of the Terminator franchise. 3/10 Bethany Cox
