I've been a fan of the Terminator series for a long time, probably longer than I should have been given that I was 4 when the original was released. I was recalling the other day how I used to have the iconic poster of Arnie on the motorbike from T2 on my wall when I was about 12, but looking at the 1991 release date I must have only been 10. Crazy stuff.
Although I don't believe I got to see T2 in the cinema as I was definitely too young, I do remember seeing The Terminator as I managed to catch it in 2011 when it was shown at The Duke of Yorks as part of a Cameron double with Aliens. My review can be found here if you're interested. I loved getting to see the first film on the big screen, even if it was somewhat spoiled by the fact that Dukes were clearly showing a very scratched DVD that kept jumping and freezing. I suppose it just added to the nostalgic atmosphere of the evening...
Anyway, enough backstory, I am a big Terminator fan, you get it, I even like Salvation, which most people hate. When I heard they were making another film I was quite happy about it as I assumed it was going to carry on the timeline from Salvation, but for those who have avoided reading any reviews for Genisys (as I did), I can tell you now that it does not.
Genisys starts out by showing an alternative meeting between a child Kyle Reese and an adult John Connor. John saves Kyle from a Terminator who was without doubt going to kill him (and probably his dog too), and so owing John his life, and idolising his mentor, he follows John into the resistance movement against Skynet. Skip to some years later and John has finally discovered where they are keeping their time travel device that they are planning to use to send the original T800 back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor. He asks for a volunteer to go back and save his mother, and of course, Kyle offers to tackle the task.
Here is where the story differs from the original as we now have a new timeline that Kyle travels back to, it's new because a T800 was already sent back to protect a 9 year old Sarah Connor from a T1000. The same type of shape shifting liquid metal terminator that was sent to kill John in T2. Following? Sarah's parents were killed by the T1000 just as John's foster parents were in T2, and so the T800 became her guardian. They bonded over time, and now they are a badass duo who are waiting for Kyle, and not only for Kyle, but for the T800 coming to kill Sarah, and they destroy him before he's even able to steal some clothes from the punks he attacks in the first film!
If you're familiar (and I mean very familiar) with Terminator 1 and 2 you'll be fine but I really feel this will be a stretch for anyone who doesn't know these movies well. No longer needing to be rescued, Sarah shows Kyle the time machine that her and 'pops' (as she calls the protector T800) have been working on, in order to go back to the 1996 'Judgement Day' and stop Skynet before it goes online. But Kyle has other ideas due to some flashbacks he had when he was travelling back to 1984 that take a bit of explaining before they make sense.
You can get your head around it but it does help if you know the originals really well.
I didn't really have any issues with the story, it made sense to me for the most part, the action set pieces kept the excitement amped up, but for me it was the casting that failed to hold up. I think it was always going to be tough to compete with the original because you're going head to head here. This isn't about casting a younger or older version of a character, this is about re-creating them at the exact moment that the original was set.
They all tried their best, but try as they did, Emilia Clarke is too brunette and too short to be the Linda Hamilton Sarah Connor that's in my head, and Jai Courtney is too bulky and too dumb to be Kyle Reese. Hamilton had such an innocence about her in the first film and I get that all of that is supposed to be gone for this version of Sarah because she's been brought up by a terminator, but she should still essentially LOOK the same right? Same goes for Courtney, as soon as he started stripping off for the time travel capsule I couldn't help but think 'uh, he's too muscly'! Maybe that's just me, like I said, they all put in good performances, but for me the casting just wasn't right for the 3 main roles (Arnie aside obviously). I like Jason Clarke but he wasn't John Connor for me.
Overall there are some nice nods to the original, the director certainly nailed those early scenes that mirror the first film, and some moments of 'oh this is good', mostly whenever J.K. Simmons was on screen. But mostly it fell oddly flat. There was also a distinct lack of chemistry between Clarke and Courtney which I am sure didn't help those scenes where you should be feeling something building between them. An okay but by no means the be all and end all of Terminator movies, 6.5 out of 10.
Viewing Date: 4th July 2015
Release Date: 2nd July 2015
Cast Overview:
Arnold Schwarzenegger ~ Guardian
Emilia Clarke ~ Sarah Connor
Jason Clarke ~ John Connor
Jai Courtney ~ Kyle Reese
J.K. Simmons ~ O'Brien
Davo Okenivi ~ Danny Dyson
Matt Smith ~ Alex
Courtney B Vance ~ Miles Dyson
Byung-Hun Lee ~ Cop/T1000
Director ~ Alan Taylor
Writer ~ Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier. Characters by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd.
