I
wanted to be sure I watched Terminator:
Genisys
before I heard anything about it. I didn’t want to see a review, a
Facebook comment, or even someone on Twitter saying, “OMG Mother of
Cyborgs so amazeballs!” or whatever. Every once in a while I have a
really bad feeling about a movie that I am hopeful for and I find it
important to see it before my opinion can be tainted; positively or
negatively.
I
really like the first movie. It’s hard, gritty sci-fi and it
effectively makes us care about the characters of Sarah Connor and
Kyle Reese in a very short period of time. Arnold is fucking scary. I
probably watch this once a year.
I
loved
the second movie when it came out, just like everyone else did. Now I
don’t. I find it hard to get through. The story is great and the
action sequences are epic, but Edward Furlong is intolerable and I do
not like the cornification of the T-800. I don’t mind that Arnold
is a good guy, it’s the jokey stuff that I don’t like. Robert
Patrick and Linda Hamilton are great, though.
Terminator
3 is
really bad. The acting, the story, many of the effects. I think I
liked it, initially, as well. But I tried to watch it again recently
and had to turn it off. I was embarrassed to be watching it (please
note that I openly admit to loving Sharktopus).
Not even the presence of two of the most gorgeous women on the planet
could keep me from turning it off.
The
Sarah Connor Chronicles
was excellent, and I’m still angrier about its cancellation than
any other show that I’ve watched. It handled time travel well, the
characters really felt like deeper, more interesting extensions of
the movie versions, and the cast was absolutely fantastic. The season
2 cliffhanger finale was incredible and we will never know what
happened.
I
enjoyed Terminator:
Salvation.
I thought it made some mistakes as far as continuing the franchise
was concerned, but it was a very good action/sci-fi movie. It wasn’t
perfect by any means, but it sold me that the story and the
characters were real and existed in the Skynetverse.
Which
brings me to Genisys.
I didn’t buy it. The acting was terrible.
I loved Jai Courtney on Spartacus,
but he has been vanilla pudding in everything else I’ve seen him
in. Emilia Clarke is beyond fantastic on Game
of Thrones,
but as Sarah Connor she has no gravitas whatsoever. I didn’t buy
her for one second and part of the issue was that she looked exactly
twelve years old. The shift from Daenerys to Sarah should have been
jarring, but somehow the shared traits of independence, survival at
all costs, and organic toughness got lost. Not for one second did I
buy Ms. Clarke as a competent, hardcore character in the way that I
did Linda Hamilton and Lena Headey (my gosh, Headey’s Sarah was
phenomenal
– I didn’t even like the character at first and I wasn’t
supposed to).
Jai
Courtney in no way captured the damaged, haunted man that Michael
Biehn portrayed in The
Terminator.
He was a big, dumb sack of beef that made snarky comments from time
to time. He never felt like a hero or savior, only a big goof that
managed to not get terminated.
I
can’t discuss the rest of the characters without spoilers, so hang
in there. I’ll get to them in a bit. For now I’ll say that J.K.
Simmons and Matt Smith were great and Lee Byung-hun did a great
Robert Patrick impersonation.
The
movie was dumb. The story was overly convoluted and had massive plot
holes. Some of this may have been due to the intention to make this a
trilogy or new franchise or whatever (dear God, no), but that’s no
excuse. When the credits rolled there were major plot questions left
unanswered and I’m not okay with that.
The
effects looked good. There were some terrible
helicopter scenes that also involved absolutely moronic
decision-making from the characters (seriously – if these dum-dums
are in charge of saving the world, we’re all fucked). The shots
with T-800s and the various other flavors of Terminators looked good,
but things faltered a bit when they showed Skynet’s larger killing
machines.
I
did think that the music was great. There was a lot of new stuff that
was reminiscent of Brad Fiedel’s powerful score, as well as
straight-up reuse in all the right spots.
There
are some bits of fan service – the “I’d like to see this
happen” sort of stuff – and when they’re plot points or visuals
rather than awkwardly delivered lines of dialogue they work.
I
can’t recommend Terminator:
Genisys.
There were a few rewarding moments, but I just did not care about the
characters or their situations. I kept thinking, “Is this almost
over?” and if I hadn’t been with friends I would’ve gotten up
and left, not one bit curious about what had happened afterward. As a
matter of fact, the second the credits rolled I walked out of the
theater, but my buddy stayed behind just in case there was an
after-credits scene.
Out
in the lobby he told me there was and I genuinely did not care. I
said, “Did it make the movie not suck?”
Which
brings me to the point where details must be discussed.
From
here on out, be warned. There will be
*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*SPOILERS*
If
you’re reading this and you’re super disappointed, don’t just
take my word for it. If you want to go and see a new Terminator
movie, by all means do it. Just because I didn’t like it doesn’t
mean you won’t.
But
man,
did I not like it.
Let’s
start with what is undoubtedly the biggest selling point of the movie
– Arnold Schwarzenegger returning as the T-800. To answer
everybody’s first question – yes, they explained why he’s old.
The living flesh that coats the endoskeletons ages. It makes sense
and is the explanation I expected.
Arnold
was actually very good, which was a relief because since his return
to showbiz he has had moments of being very not good. Many of them.
My issue isn’t with Schwarzenegger’s performance, it’s with the
way they wrote the T-800. It’s back to being corny and loving and
humanized. I don’t take issue with a Terminator being sent back to
protect Sarah Connor (and we never do find out who sent it, by the
way), but it’s a fucking robot. There’s nothing wrong with it
being awkward and stolid, but I don’t need jokes. There are ways to
make interactions with the Terminator awkward and humorous without
humanizing it.
There
is one gag that they repeat that works. Sarah has been teaching the
T-800 to blend in and Arnold does this horrifying and hilarious
rictus grin. The way he does it totally looks like a robot trying to
smile. It’s a funny visual and an example of the machine being a
point of situational humor without becoming a goofy character.
The
opening portions of the movie are solid. They do a lot of playing
around with what we already know. The T-800 arrival scene from The
Terminator
is recreated, but when a nekkid Arnold asks the punks for their
clothes, older Arnold (called “Pops”) shows up and a pretty great
fight ensues. I like that the filmmakers kept the T-800s nice and
slow and didn’t decide to have them start using kung-fu or some
bullshit. It looked like two robot Arnold Schwarzeneggers beating the
crap out of each other.
The
problem with the opening scenes is that as I was watching I was
reminded of the other actors that have played these characters and
was painfully aware of the fact that the new ones just were not
getting the job done. I wasn’t buying them.
Note
to Hollywood casting agents – Jason Clarke looks like a villain. I
don’t know why you guys keep casting him as a hero, but you’re
fucking things up. And it really
fucked
Genisys
up.
Folks
were pretty upset when the studio gave away the fact that John Connor
(played by Jason Clarke) is a Terminator in the movie. That’s not
the part that’s the problem. The problem is that from the first
second that I saw Clarke’s shitty scar makeup on screen, I was
like, “Oh, I don’t trust this guy. I don’t care what his name
is.” So when he shows up later in the movie to rescue the two
dumbest time travelers ever –Sarah and Kyle – there was no doubt
in my mind that he had bad intentions. The dude just looks evil.
Setup
is a big problem in Genisys.
There were several events like the aforementioned Connor reveal that
could have been memorable and exciting if not for the structure of
the movie being so awkward. As an example, at one point we see that
the T-1000 played by Lee Byung-hun has thrown a bit of itself onto
the truck that Pops, Sarah, and Kyle are driving as a means a
tracking them (a clever concept, by the way). The problem is that we
didn’t need to see that. The resulting scene has Pops turning
around, apparently ready to shoot Kyle Reese because the two do not
trust one another. But the audience already knows that the piece of
the T-1000 is back there, so there’s no tension or exciting reveal.
Instead what we knew was going to happen happened.
There
was a lot of lazy storytelling, things that felt like, “Well, we
want to do this, so let’s figure out an excuse to do it”. Kyle
Reese is the crux of the new timeline that has been created by
Skynet, and there’s a lot of questionable, “Remember this thing!”
stuff that goes on in his head.
I’m
still not clear on how or why the timeline changed or how Sarah and
Kyle could travel from 1984 to 2017 without bringing John Connor into
the world and yet he’s still there. I don’t want to devote too
much thought to all of the paradoxes presented by Genisys
because I am generally pretty forgiving about that sort of thing, but
so much
of it seemed like the filmmakers just saying, “Shhh… don’t look
at that”. It’s the kind of fuckery that Doctor
Who
gets away with because I love Doctor
Who so
much.
Maybe
the filmmakers knew that and it’s why they cast the Doctor as
Skynet.
Matt
Smith is great as Skynet, by the way. He starts off as a new flavor
of Terminator that we haven’t seen before and is seemingly the
cause of the timeline change when he attacks John Connor as Kyle
Reese is leaving for 1984. Why at that moment? Why didn’t he kill
Reese? Why didn’t he kill John Connor before they accessed Skynet’s
time travel device? Why did he allow the resistance to shut down
Skynet? There are an awful lot of questions like this that the movie
simply glosses over, and I got the feeling that the answer was,
“Because we didn’t want to have to think too much about it and
didn’t that scene look cool?”
Again,
I am usually pretty forgiving of this sort of thing, but Genisys
had far too many flaws to get away with so much of it.
Later
on Smith is shown as a holographic projection that Skynet uses to
express its displeasure with humanity in general and Kyle Reese and
Sarah Connor specifically. Smith is cold and sinister and I really
wish we’d seen more of him.
J.K.
Simmons played a police officer named O’Brien that witnessed Sarah
and Kyle’s Terminator craziness in 1984. Reese saved him, so ever
since then he has been trying to figure out what happened. He becomes
involved with the pair again when they show up in 2017 (nobody ever
explained why they decided to show up just a few days before Skynet
launched under the guise of the Genisys networking platform – why
not go to 2016? They seemed to be able to control their arrival
time). Simmons does a great job portraying a desperate but likeable
guy and he definitely had the most interesting story in the movie.
There’s
a lot of tension set up about the fact that Sarah and Kyle are
supposed to get it on and create John Connor. I just didn’t care.
Connor was not an inspirational or likeable character in the movie,
and there was zero chemistry between Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke.
Again, this could have been a powerful and effective storyline, but
it just wasn’t portrayed competently.
I
have to mention the helicopter chase. Pops, Kyle, and Sarah hop into
a helicopter with a big bag of weapons to escape the pursuing John
Connor Terminator. There are two helicopters on the roof and they do
not shoot the second helicopter as they take off, despite knowing the
Connornator is right behind them. Somehow the Connornator instantly
starts his helo and has it in the air and on their tails within a few
seconds. At this point they shoot him with something that makes a
huge explosion but does not bring down the helicopter. They
shot him and not the helicopter.
Helicopters are fragile air vehicles with many vulnerable points, the
loss of any one of which during flight results in a crash. But these
wise warriors – one the survivor of humanity’s most brutal and
taxing war, one a killing machine, and one an eleven year student of
said killing machine – don’t think to target any of those spots.
Also
the helicopters fly sideways and scrape on buildings and it’s
utterly ridiculous. They could have filmed a cool helicopter sequence
without throwing the potential for suspension of disbelief out the
window.
I
want to end on a positive note, so here are two things I liked:
1
– The John Connor/Terminator hybrid was a great
concept. It was very cool, with only a couple of moments of lame CGI
to detract from its menacing presence. I loved the idea of Skynet
infecting a human host after recognizing that its constant defeats
lay in its inability to think like a human. Since I’m being
positive, I won’t think too much about how, exactly, Skynet knows
it has been defeated so many times.
2
– Seeing all of the different Terminators fighting and having
active roles was awesome. They were utilized well and I have to admit
that I was excited to see them in action. I even liked the idea of
Pops’ chip being integrated into T-1000 liquid to give it a new
body. That was a cool idea that was teased and paid off effectively.
I
can’t imagine I’ll ever watch this movie again. It was pretty
much as modern-Hollywood-sequel bad as I was expecting and lacked any
of the soul or gravitas of the original, or even of Salvation,
which I liked a lot more. If you need to see it, go check it out.
Maybe you’ll like it. But I sure didn’t.
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