**
out of ****
The original “The Terminator” (1984) was a career-maker. It launched Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom, radically increased the value of James Cameron's stock and made Linda Hamilton every teenage boy's fantasy about an ass-kicking girl-next-door. Don't even get me started on the hair.... But not only was it a career maker, it was a bona-fide landmark in science fiction. There had been time travel movies before, but “The Terminator” was the first to give us the idea of going back in time to kill an enemy's relatives in order to prevent their existence. And it was really, really cool.....
But what made it cool? I can think of a couple of things, things that are sadly missing from the latest installment in the series, “Terminator: Genisys”. First, Arnie's Terminator was terrifying – a cold, merciless, virtually indestructible robot assassin that would stop at nothing to destroy you. And second, the guy sent to stop him (Kyle Reese, played originally by Michael Biehn) was a closet case – so malnourished from the war, shell-shocked and on the edge that his quick-trigger paranoia was as dangerous as the Terminator itself. In “Terminator: Genisys” we have a Terminator that is positively cuddly (he is called “Pops” by Sarah Connor) and a Kyle Reese that looks like he stepped straight out of a fitness video and has none of the twitchy scariness of Biehn's version.
But the story first. The opening sequences are pretty cool, as we learn about Reese's (Jai Courtney) meeting with humanity's savior, John Connor (Jason Clarke). We follow them through the war and when Skynet falls, into the time-displacement module that they learn has already sent the Terminator (Arnie) back to 1984. Reese volunteers to go after it to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), but when he gets there everything is waaaaaay different than what we saw in the original movie.
It turns out that somehow (it's never clearly explained how) another “liquid metal” Terminator was sent back to kill Sarah when she was nine years old, and she was saved by our old buddy Arnie. For those of you counting, that makes seven total Terminators sent back since the start of the franchise. But that's not all, Reese finds more Terminators have been sent back to kill him in 1984. Wasn't the original plan, “Nobody goes back, nobody else comes through.”? Ah well, can't make a bunch of crappy sequels if you follow the rules.
Now the alternate timeline gives us another opportunity to stop Skynet before it comes online, but even this is complicated by the modern-day appearance of John Connor himself. Don't ask me why.... the answer is so completely out there it's almost impossible to describe. But Reese and Sarah are left (along with “Pops”, the "buddy" Terminator) to save the world. Again.
Now this movie doesn't suck. The production values are first rate, the action is dynamic and the special effects blow your mind. On top of that the performances are very good (given what they had to work with) and there's even a pretty decent explanation of why the Terminator looks so old. If you go into this film having never seen a Terminator movie you'll have a great time, and even viewing it as a fan of the franchise I enjoyed watching it despite it's flaws.
But on the strictly “how does it compare” side, “Terminator: Genisys” flat-out blows. JJ Abrams tried to ruin “Star Trek” by creating a movie-series timeline that negated everything about the original Star Trek TV series, and Alan Taylor tries to do the same thing here. But unlike Abrams, who at least gave us all the things that made the original series great but in a different way, everything about this version is weaker. Except the special effects (which in the original are pretty bad by modern standards....).
A Terminator needs to be terrifying, not loveable. Reese needs to be a man on the edge, not a superhero sans cape. Sarah Connor needs to be a damsel in distress who learns how to be tough, not a rugged, type-A munitions expert with a chip on her shoulder. I don't have any real argument with a series reboot, but one that sucks in comparison really bothers me. This one isn't even rated R – they even edit out Arnie's bare ass from the original. Obviously the lines like, “He'll find her and rip her fucking heart out,” are absent. Has the Governator gone so far to milquetoast that even his most badass villain is now a puss?
I'm not even going to get into the ridiculously convoluted time paradoxes that are in this movie – while they bother me from a logic point of view I didn't find they detracted too much from the film as a whole. And I won't even say don't go see it, because I did and I'm glad I did. But you'll need to try to watch it outside of the context of the original. Because it simply doesn't measure up.
The original “The Terminator” (1984) was a career-maker. It launched Arnold Schwarzenegger to stardom, radically increased the value of James Cameron's stock and made Linda Hamilton every teenage boy's fantasy about an ass-kicking girl-next-door. Don't even get me started on the hair.... But not only was it a career maker, it was a bona-fide landmark in science fiction. There had been time travel movies before, but “The Terminator” was the first to give us the idea of going back in time to kill an enemy's relatives in order to prevent their existence. And it was really, really cool.....
But what made it cool? I can think of a couple of things, things that are sadly missing from the latest installment in the series, “Terminator: Genisys”. First, Arnie's Terminator was terrifying – a cold, merciless, virtually indestructible robot assassin that would stop at nothing to destroy you. And second, the guy sent to stop him (Kyle Reese, played originally by Michael Biehn) was a closet case – so malnourished from the war, shell-shocked and on the edge that his quick-trigger paranoia was as dangerous as the Terminator itself. In “Terminator: Genisys” we have a Terminator that is positively cuddly (he is called “Pops” by Sarah Connor) and a Kyle Reese that looks like he stepped straight out of a fitness video and has none of the twitchy scariness of Biehn's version.
But the story first. The opening sequences are pretty cool, as we learn about Reese's (Jai Courtney) meeting with humanity's savior, John Connor (Jason Clarke). We follow them through the war and when Skynet falls, into the time-displacement module that they learn has already sent the Terminator (Arnie) back to 1984. Reese volunteers to go after it to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), but when he gets there everything is waaaaaay different than what we saw in the original movie.
It turns out that somehow (it's never clearly explained how) another “liquid metal” Terminator was sent back to kill Sarah when she was nine years old, and she was saved by our old buddy Arnie. For those of you counting, that makes seven total Terminators sent back since the start of the franchise. But that's not all, Reese finds more Terminators have been sent back to kill him in 1984. Wasn't the original plan, “Nobody goes back, nobody else comes through.”? Ah well, can't make a bunch of crappy sequels if you follow the rules.
Now the alternate timeline gives us another opportunity to stop Skynet before it comes online, but even this is complicated by the modern-day appearance of John Connor himself. Don't ask me why.... the answer is so completely out there it's almost impossible to describe. But Reese and Sarah are left (along with “Pops”, the "buddy" Terminator) to save the world. Again.
Now this movie doesn't suck. The production values are first rate, the action is dynamic and the special effects blow your mind. On top of that the performances are very good (given what they had to work with) and there's even a pretty decent explanation of why the Terminator looks so old. If you go into this film having never seen a Terminator movie you'll have a great time, and even viewing it as a fan of the franchise I enjoyed watching it despite it's flaws.
But on the strictly “how does it compare” side, “Terminator: Genisys” flat-out blows. JJ Abrams tried to ruin “Star Trek” by creating a movie-series timeline that negated everything about the original Star Trek TV series, and Alan Taylor tries to do the same thing here. But unlike Abrams, who at least gave us all the things that made the original series great but in a different way, everything about this version is weaker. Except the special effects (which in the original are pretty bad by modern standards....).
A Terminator needs to be terrifying, not loveable. Reese needs to be a man on the edge, not a superhero sans cape. Sarah Connor needs to be a damsel in distress who learns how to be tough, not a rugged, type-A munitions expert with a chip on her shoulder. I don't have any real argument with a series reboot, but one that sucks in comparison really bothers me. This one isn't even rated R – they even edit out Arnie's bare ass from the original. Obviously the lines like, “He'll find her and rip her fucking heart out,” are absent. Has the Governator gone so far to milquetoast that even his most badass villain is now a puss?
I'm not even going to get into the ridiculously convoluted time paradoxes that are in this movie – while they bother me from a logic point of view I didn't find they detracted too much from the film as a whole. And I won't even say don't go see it, because I did and I'm glad I did. But you'll need to try to watch it outside of the context of the original. Because it simply doesn't measure up.
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