Ok kids, I have to go meet some friends for drinks so I'm going to give you my thoughts on Terminator Genisys as directly and eloquently as I can. In the fifth installment of this franchise we actually see Kyle Reese travel from the future to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor from the original Terminator in the first film. But when Kyle, played by Jai Courtney, arrives thinking he'll find a naive and scared Sarah Connor he finds one that has been raised by a Terminator ever since she was a little girl and ready for some action. As always, our heroes now must find a way to stop Skynet from being activated and stopping Judgement Day from happening.
I liked the chemistry between Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke, and think they will be good for the franchise, should another sequel be made. The twist with John Connor put me off a bit, and really wasn't done well enough to matter. Like Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the film tried to add too may jokes to a franchise whose best film was taken totally seriously. Terminator: Salvation lost the time-travel element that makes this series special, but this fifth film had plenty to make up for it's predecessor.
Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to this franchise that made him famous, but still was not as good of performance as Terminator 2: Judgement Day. With trying to make his robot personality funny it didn't pay off because it was used to frequently. I think all the elements of a great film were here, but like the football coach that still lives off of his championship season many years ago, this film is far from the heights the Terminator name used to be.
Honestly, the Sarah/Kyle stuff was the highlight of the film and the only thing I stayed focused on. She felt like ever since she was a girl she had a path she couldn't stray from, all the while trying to keep a secret from Kyle that they are supposed to fall in love and out of that would come John Connor; the world's greatest hero. Kyle on the other hand grew up idolizing his own son, not knowing he was his father. And John had to keep that secret from his best friend most of his life.
After the film I thought about the Sarah/Kyle/John dynamic and how much I love the time paradox. John saved Kyle as a child from a Terminator. Kyle then goes back in time to save Sarah and tells her how John saved him as a child. Sarah then tells young John where and when to save Kyle later in his life, because without Kyle to go back in time John never would have been born. I love time paradoxes!
So, in closing, Clark and Courtney were the good parts of the film and I'd be happy to go see another Terminator film sequel, provided they cut out trying to appeal to the broader audience with silliness and just give us some raw rated-R action with a deep time travel storyline. Besides, we still don't even know who sent back '"Pops". And yes, there is a mid-credits scene.
RATING: C
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