Terminator Genisys by Alan Taylor on Blu-ray
My rating: 9 out of 10 stars
When John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the human resistance, sends Sgt. Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and safeguard the future, an unexpected turn of events creates a fractured timeline. Now, Sgt. Reese finds himself in a new and unfamiliar version of the past, where he is faced with unlikely allies, including the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), dangerous new enemies, and an unexpected new mission: To reset the future…
I have to say that, after Terminator Salvation, I was not expecting to be overwhelmed by this movie. I would say that overwhelmed is still a too strong word but I was positively surprised. This is a good movie in the good old terminator spirit. At least that is my personal opinion.
The movie does screw the timeline quite a lot but then the entire Terminator series is indeed about time travel and the fuck ups that come with it. Normally I do not like these kind of things but I have to say that the script writer did a decent enough job of this one. I did, of course, not expect timeline, or scientific, accuracy from a movie like this.
The movie goes back to its roots, kind of, but then it diverts somewhat. I did like the references, almost flashbacks, to the original movie in the very beginning. When the alternate timeline kicks in things start to heat up both story and action wise. Sure the movie starts of with quite a bit of an action bang but the first parts are more like sweeteners to get the old fans, like me, to sit comfortably in their seats.
I am not overly convinced about the choice of actors for neither Sarah Connor nor Kyle Reese though. Emilia Clarke simply looked to young and immature for her role (I get the feeling she was chosen for her “sex appeal”) and Jai Courtney, personal opinion here, simply lacked charisma. He just felt dull compared to the “original”.
One character that I, obviously, agreed with was good old Schwarzy. Here I think the script writers did a really good job of blending him into the movie and explain why he is not a youngster any more. I did also like J.K. Simmons. He did not play an overly important role but he was just that added, almost comical, relief to the movie.
Not surprisingly, there was plenty of good action in this movie. Action which of course benefitted from modern movie science (CGI) compared to the early originals.
On the whole it was a good movie. It suffered a wee bit from the Hollywood bean counters desire to make it PG rated of course. Maybe that was having an influence on the casting as well, especially the one of Sarah Connor? Given the dark nature of the baseline plot the movie could have benefitted from a more adult setting.
Still, as I wrote above, I was positively surprised and both me an my son liked this movie quite a lot.
PG's Ramblings 