Terminator Genisys

They have taken everything you know about The Terminator, chopped it up, tossed it like a salad and put it on a plate before you promising it will be delicious. It’s still just a salad.

Jai Courtney stars as Kyle Reese – a dedicated soldier fighting for the human resistance effort in 2029. John Connor (Jason Clarke) leads what is left of humans after a nuclear war put computers in charge, but today is the day all of that can change (Sounds familiar, right?).

Kyle is being sent back in time to 1984 to save Connor’s mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke), from being killed by a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) before she can become pregnant with John. Along with the stunning victory the resistance is about to achieve, this act will save humanity.

However, Kyle discovers a 1984 much different from what he has been led to believe he will find, and he must team up with Sarah to change the future because the evil SkyNet has also changed the past and future in ways that may lead to the end of humanity. I dare you to try to keep it all straight.

Yet, I don’t think that is the point of Terminator Genisys.

Director Alan Taylor will be blowing some stuff up.

Writers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier will provide some kooky one-liners for Arnold.

Arnold will deliver those kooky one-liners.

That’s the gist and purpose of Terminator Genisys. Think of it as a mish mash of everything you already know with some new fight scenes tossed in!

Fans may enjoy the intellectual game of watching what happens to the future as various forces attempt to change it, but it is too late in the game for newcomers. Sure, everything is explained and might be shocking if you have never seen a Terminator movie, but this is a movie made for people who know every nook and cranny of the canon as the creative team takes advantage of your love for the movies to deliver something lackluster and unoriginal.

Emilia Clarke and Courtney do not have the material nor the chemistry to make their growing attraction feel believable or as vital to the story as we know it to be.

Schwarzenegger is hamming it up spitting out familiar lines as he does what he does best – act wooden for ironic and comic sake.

Then, we do get some awesome special effects. The fight scenes, computers projecting images of themselves, terminators shape shifting and more all is very awesome to watch, but it’s not enough to make Terminator Genisys a MUST SEE movie.

In the end, you get the impression everyone involved in making the film feels the actual action of doing something is vastly more important than the why behind it, so we can enjoy the spectacle, but not much else as Terminator Genisys devolves into non-stop action.

Terminator Genisys is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and gunplay throughout, partial nudity and brief strong language.