James Cameron turned into something of an overnight
sensation in the 1980’s. His first true director’s credit came in the form of
1984 classic The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the iconic title
character. Soon after came Aliens, The Abyss, and in 1991, Cameron returned to
the looming threat of Skynet with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which was both
bigger and better than the original, and stands as one of the greatest action
films of all time.
However, much like the Alien franchise that Cameron played a
part in, the Terminator films to follow suffered an inevitable decline in quality.
22 years and two lazy sequels after Terminator 2, the franchise returns with
Terminator Genisys (I hope I’m spelling that right). Acting as an X-Men: Days
of Future Past continuation and reboot to the series, the film is intended to
jump start a brand new trilogy of Terminator films. And as a huge fan of this
series, if this is how they want to start that trilogy, I have no hope for
anything that’s going to follow.
32 years after the occurrence of Judgment Day, the resistance
led by John Connor (Jason Clarke) against global network Skynet is in its final
stretches, but is shaken up when Skynet sends one of their Terminators back in
time to kill his mother Sarah as a last resort. Fellow soldier Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteers
to go back in time to protect Connor’s mother from the threat, but finds that
the original timeline has been drastically altered. Sarah Connor (Emilia
Clarke) is no longer the once helpless waitress she was, but now trained as a
soldier by an older T-800 model (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The three team up to
take down an upcoming app codenamed Genisys that acts as a universal operating
system, but once initiated, will launch Judgment Day itself.
Before pressing forward, I feel it necessary to address the
lead up to this movie. Before the movie was even released, it was subject to heavy
criticism for its embarrassing marketing campaign, most of which revolved
around a specific trailer that spoiled a major twist midway through the film.
Despite it being an open secret, I won’t dare spoil it if you’re one of the
three people lucky enough to avoid the film’s advertising, but all of this
showed just how desperate the studio clearly was for this film to be a hit,
almost as if they had no faith in it on its own.
Perhaps they had every reason to be, for Terminator Genisys
is a terribly written film. Weaving in the concept of multiple timelines, the
film is littered with countless loopholes, inconsistencies, and logic gaps that
are best not dwelled on for too long for fear of inducing a migraine. The film
attempts to bring the franchise into the new generation with poor results, with
Genisys itself providing a shoehorned allegory of the growing technological
evolution. It essentially paints these things as little more than things to be
feared and despised, with Skynet itself embodied by Matt Smith of Doctor Who
fame, and forcing the “godlike” powers of the internet and technical
advancements with cartoonish simplicity.
The film is riddled with numerous callbacks and tributes to
the original two Terminator films, including shot for shot recreations of
famous scenes such as the opening scene of the first film, and an appearance
from a brand new T-1000, played here by Byung-Hun Lee. However, these callbacks
come across as completely vapid in execution, feeling like forced in fan
service that relies too heavily on what its predecessors did rather than
differentiating itself, and leave one yearning to instead watch either of those
two movies. Nowhere is the writing more flawed than during the aforementioned
twists of the film, for whether or not the element of surprise had not been
sacrificed in its trailers and advertising, the fact remains that they would
still be awful as the actual motivations make absolutely no sense on reflection.
By the time all is said and done, the entire thing reads like high-budget
fan-fiction, and while the Terminator films have had their questionable time
travel logic, never have they been taken to this much of an extreme.
This silliness even works its way into the action and
characters. The film, directed by Alan Taylor of Game of Thrones and Thor: The
Dark World, has little sense of balance going on, and fails to elevate the poor
material in any way. The action is often clunky and poorly shot, and riddled
with over the top stunts that require too much suspension of disbelief. A
sequence involving a bus on the Golden Gate Bridge feels like the filmmakers
watching the truck flipping scene from The Dark Knight and the opening sequence
of Uncharted 2 for the PS3, and saying “we can make that more extreme.” As
extreme that heavy CGI that largely casts aside the seamless animatronics and
puppetry of the originals can be, that is. Couple that with a weak sense of
humor - a lot of which is provided by JK Simmons as a bumbling detective - and
you won’t find yourself laughing as much as groaning, such as a scene where the
trio of leads are arrested and taken for mug shots while the song “Bad Boys”
plays. Seriously! That happens!
Despite the always welcome presence of Schwarzenegger as the
title character, the rest of the ensemble cast doesn’t leave the same impact.
Jai Courtney makes for a bland and uninteresting leading man, Jason Clarke’s
John Connor eventually turns into a full on ham, and despite Game of Thrones
mainstay Emilia Clarke’s usually powerful presence on that show, what makes her
successful in one project doesn’t necessarily do the same thing in another. Now
walking in the shoes of Linda Hamilton, she feels badly miscast and out of
place. However, that’s not to say it's entirely her fault, because while I won’t
be harsh enough to label her as terrible, the role is, as it feels much weaker
in comparison to the original interpretation.
Perhaps it seemed like such a disastrous idea to begin with
that I can’t really call Genisys a disappointment, but that doesn’t excuse all
of the heinous faults with the film. Little more than fan-fiction on the big
screen, the film criminally wastes an enviable amount of talent on a preposterous
set up and execution, and makes Rise of the Machines look good by comparison.
By the time all is said and done in this movie, you’ll be
wishing that this now struggling franchise would wish us all “Hasta la Vista,
Baby” for good.
*1/2 / *****
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