You know... I consider myself a good sport. I've watched some bad movies in my day. Usually, I can sit through a movie, stand up and say, yeah that movie was bad, yeah there's probably not anything really redeeming about it, but I can laugh at how bad it was. At least when I went to the midnight premiere of The Last Airbender, I came out of it laughing saying, wow, that was so bad it was funny. Lots of times, I can find a movie so bad that its almost entertaining how bad it is.
Terminator Genisys has created a new category in bad movies. Like there are bad movies, and then there is Terminator: Genisys.
I've had a troubled history with the Terminator movies. I'll be one hundred percent honest, I fell asleep during the first one. Maybe its how popular the movie is, maybe its how well known the story is, but I knew exactly what happened and honestly the first movie put me to sleep. I have yet to watch the second one. I mean I've heard that its one of the best science fiction movies of all time, but with my experience with Terminator movies, you'll understand if I have a hard time believing that. I didn't bother with Terminator 3. I saw bits a pieces of Salvation but I never could get into it.
And then the trailer came out. Now, I was one of the many who saw the trailer above and said, wow that basically shows a huge spoiler in the movie (John Connor becoming a terminator), doesn't that seem like the entire movie?
But a part of me thought that perhaps we were all wrong. Maybe, just maybe, this movie could be really good. I mean James Cameron himself said that this movie was going back to the roots of Terminator and making it better. The whole rewriting the timeline has worked with other franchises like Star Trek, why wouldn't it work here?
Let's just say James Cameron has lost all his credibility in my mind and if you've watched the trailer above, you have seen the movie.
Connor and his right hand man Kyle Reese (played by Jai Courtney) have led a successful resistance and are about to destroy SkyNet. Right before their campaign is successful, the machines send back a Terminator (played by horrible CGI Arnold Schwarzenegger) to kill John Connor's mother, Sarah Connor (played by Emilia Clarke). Kyle Reese volunteers to go back in time after the Terminator and stop him from doing anything to Sarah Connor and saving his friend's existence.
Now the beginning of this film is basically the plot of Terminator 1 but from the side of Kyle Reese and John Connor. He shows up in 1984, he's looking for the Terminator and more importantly, a weak and vulnerable Sarah Connor, but twist! Sarah Connor rides up saving Kyle. She's not the vulnerable woman he thought she was going to be.
Sarah knows everything, from SkyNet to the fact that she has to "mate" with Kyle Reese to bear John Connor. (really, that was a joke they were really pushing in this movie).
Because Old Arnold and Sarah Connor are a new team, their mission is to destroy SkyNet from every existing and like most of the other films, save humanity from ever falling into the machine apocalypse that it just seems to always fall into.
The movie takes a couple turns and because the trailer didn't give a shit about not spoiling the movie, I'm not going to give a shit either.
Basically, instead of going to 1997 and stopping whatever happened in past movies, they decide to go to 2017 where a new operating system called Genisys is being announced and turns out to be the precursor to SkyNet.
On top of all of that, suddenly John Connor comes out of no where and turns out he is a Terminator now.
I'm not gonna say it was the worst thing to ever happen as it does create something different in the story than what we're used to and it does create for a villain that is a little more personal for the protagonists.
The thing that is so disappointing is that this could have actually made for an interesting twist... if I didn't know it was going to happen.
Like for some reason this movie decided tell everything about John Connor becoming a terminator and nothing about the real... villain? in Matt Smith's character. He's basically SkyNet and in essence is the Genisys program. And for the most part, I actually really liked Matt Smith in this movie. I thought he was really good. Why wouldn't they reveal him and leave the whole John Connor is a terminator thing as a secret?
Anyways, John Connor is a Terminator and he wants to release Genisys and make Judgement Day happen.
And Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, and Old Arnold need to stop that from happening.
And the weird thing is, I like the majority of this cast. I like Jason Clarke, I loved him in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I love Emilia Clarke, I love her stuff in Game of Thrones. I love Matt Smith, I hope he gets better work because he was great in Doctor Who and I actually kind of enjoyed him in this film. And yeah, I kind of like Arnold as well. These are all people I hope get more work because I like them all.
Jai Courtney... I'm just not totally sure how he keeps getting work. I thought he was okay in Divergent and Insurgent but he was better as the asshole bad guy. There's no way he can hold his own movie like he tried to in this. And while Divergent gave him some rope for Suicide Squad, this movie pulls it right on back.
But the main factor that made me think that this movie was one of the worst pieces of garbage I've seen all year is the fact that 10 minutes in, I was falling asleep. Falling asleep at a Terminator movie! I don't mean that in a way of saying like the Terminator franchise has always been a thinking man's franchise, but a movie that had so many explosions, so many scenes of Arnold fighting like the soulless robot that he is, and I was falling asleep. This movie was not just bad, it was boring.
When you get more out of a movie in its trailer than you do in the movie itself, its time to let the T-800 finally go out of commission and to let John Connor... do something, I'm not totally sure what, not exist or have a happy life, whatever.
And the thing is, lots of times with these movies I can say, if they had changed this, or if they had done this, I would have enjoyed it a little bit more or it would have been passable. But in this movie, there is really not a whole lot I think could have changed.
Maybe if the movie hadn't been spoiled in the trailers I would have been a little bit more interested but that's it, I'm here to tell you that you don't need to waste your money. Just scroll up, watch the trailer and figure out some kind of ending to what they're laying down in front of you. Chances are, it will be 10 times better of an ending as this movie did.
I didn't even stick around long enough to see the Post-credit scene because this movie was so boring.
I mean I might say that this movie had an interesting idea, changing up the timeline so you can reboot the franchise while paying homage to the first movies but just all the choices with this new set up were awful and the movie just suffers.
I really cannot believe that this movie bored me so much that I fell asleep but its true. This is what happens when people don't care about their story and just put up big name stars, a franchise name, and a lot of action sequences and say, "TA DA! Its a movie!"
Terminator: Genisys luckily is a negative outlier in a series of reboots (because we have a lot of those these days) that for the most part, have been homages rather than what this movie did which was not give a shit.
In this film is just seemed lazy and exhausted. Maybe the story is exhausted, maybe there is only two movies worth of material about a robot apocalypse and time traveling Terminators that made Terminator 1 and 2 good. I don't know, I'll have to go back and watch both of them and the subsequent sequels to really tell, but after this movie, I don't imagine that happening for a long time.
In short, this movie just left the Terminator franchise leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth and I don't want to think about this movie anymore. My advice, watch the trailer above and figure out your own ending, it will probably be a better movie that this pile of dogshit.
But if I'm totally wrong, please let me know. What did you think of Terminator: Genisys? Is there anything redeeming about this film? Comment and Discuss below! You can also follow me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 to get updates on future movie news and reviews. You can also send me your thoughts on Terminator Genisys and give me ideas for future reviews.
I'll leave you with this. Its an Epic Rap battle of history. Enjoy!
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