I expected Terminator Genisys to be wretched so when I finally watched it, I enjoyed it. Unfortunately I found out way too late that there is a mid credits scene so I should not have left the theater as soon as it finished. Oh well. I do wish that I had rewatched Terminator Genisys’ predecessors so I could compare whether some scenes were perfect recreations. I purposely did not rewatch them because I did not want to be disappointed and constantly comparing Terminator Genisys with Terminator and Terminator: Judgment Day. I suppose that Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Salvation can be forgotten forever.
Cons: Jai Courtney does nothing for me, and he plays Kyle Reese. At least he wasn’t playing the same role like he did in Divergent and Jack Reacher, but he is no Michael Biehn. I feel like he is getting all the work that Michael Rosenbaum should rightfully be getting because he is younger and buffer, but Rosenbaum is a better actor and has scorching charisma with a similar face. Life is not fair. I did NOT buy the love story. Terminator Genisys’ plot is clearly setting the stage for future sequels and seems downright perky and optimistic in comparison to its more apocalyptic predecessors. Terminator Genisys lacks the emotional resonance and constant impending consequence of characters’ actions as its predecessors. Terminator Genisys also did not fully develop the Dyson plot point-with cameras everywhere, would they not figure out that the genius behind their work also emerges from fireballs unharmed. I would have loved a brief cameo from Robert Patrick. I am a feminist, but the whole “I don’t need to be rescued or want help” when she kind of does felt a bit heavy-handed. The prior Terminator movies and the excellent tv series, Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, felt inherently feminist whereas this one felt like it was feminism by numbers. I missed Sarah’s burgeoning insanity.
Pros: Terminator Genisys gave me terminators fighting terminators. Duh! I got Arnold Schwarzenegger versus Arnold Schwarzenegger versus Byung-hun Lee versus PLOT TWIST, which I probably would have seen coming if I saw a commercial or looked at the poster art since the minute that I saw the face of Skynet before he was revealed as the face of Skynet, I said to myself, “He is a bad guy.” I would have loved more Byung-hun Lee, but I’ll sign a waiver. I loved J. K. Simmons. I actually liked the PLOT TWIST regarding the next step after T-1000. Terminator Genisys was evoking vampires and zombies-an enemy with a face that we loved, and I appreciated the textured adversary though it does give me pause that future dialogue of the human main characters will be eye roll worthy.
As he gets older, I love Arnold Schwarzenegger. As long as he stays out of politics and now that he has abandoned his ambitions to be the next Jesus, he is emoting the hell out of his dialogue playing a machine better than he did as a human in earlier roles. When he said, “Take care of my Sarah,” I actually teared up, but my name is Sarah so who knows. It was such a cheesy plot line, but he made it work.
Emilia Clarke did an adequate job. I neither hated nor loved her performance as Sarah Connor. The mother of dragons did not quite make it her own like Cersei Lannister, ahem, Lena Headey, did, but Clarke evoked enough of a younger Linda Hamilton to get a passing grade.
When Schwarzenegger dies and there are no more Terminator movies, I’ll rewatch the entire franchise, but until then, if I don’t examine it too closely, Terminator Genisys will do as a fun summer blockbuster movie that has less evocative, emotional resonance as Dawn of the Planet of the Apes regarding the implications of human actions with all of the bridge peril fun.