Terminator Genisys - Review
Terminator: Genisys… wrongfully flopped
Let me just put this out front… Arnold is not a great actor. Even having a part as a cybernetic organism, he can’t get it right. It kinda makes you wonder why Skynet would appoint an Austrian accent to a cyborg that is supposed to be able to blend in with average people in post-apocalyptic L.A., as well as 1984 L.A. That being said…
Reports from the box office show that ticket sales weren’t what they had hoped. That could very well be that viewers are skeptical of spending money on another Terminator movie after Rise of the Machines and Salvation (both of which were pretty bad). Guess what? In Genisys – those 2 movies might as well have never happened.
Fans of time travel genres (such as Doctor Who, Back to the Future, Project Almanac, and the like) will understand that traversing time-space can be tricky, and doing anything in an alternate time-line can have major ramifications on your own time-line. That’s where Genisys comes into play in the Terminator mythos. Let’s take a step back…
In 1984 Los Angeles, a time traveling T-800: Model 101 cybernetic organism and a human named Kyle Reese landed nude in the streets with two very different missions: One to kill Sarah Connor, and one to save her so that the leader of the resistance would one day be born. Fast forward a little… Kyle has basically saved Sarah, apparently impregnated her with the future resistance leader and helped destroy Arnold… I mean, the Terminator. Not totally perhaps?
Anyway, in this time-line… John sends back a good friend in the resistance (his own father) to save his mother. Thereby, making his own existence possible. Freaky, right? Well, hold on to your seats, because Terminator 2 adds even more fun to the story.
It’s 1991… uh, but it’s supposed to be 1995… anyway – John is apparently 10 and living with a foster family (though he’s played by a 14 year-old Ed Furlong. I guess I never caught that before), Sarah is in a psych ward, Guns N Roses is apparently still cool, Robert Patrick is a liquid metal terminator, and Arnold is still the Arnold terminator.
What happened was this… when Kyle and Sarah destroyed the first Arnold-bot, they left some parts behind. The left-behind CPU and arm of the T-800 were picked up by Cyberdyne – where Miles Dyson has started construction on what would become SkyNet. SkyNet in the future has decided that now is the time to send back a more advanced T-1000 “mimetic poly-alloy” liquid metal/ shape shifting terminator to kill John, since that first one didn’t do the trick with Sarah. And future John decided to send back the Austrian Arnold-bot that has been reprogrammed to save young John in 1995.
PHEW! John and Arnold-bot devise a plan to break Sarah out of crazy prison. She then takes over and decides they should destroy all the evidence of the original Terminator sent back in ’84, blow up Cyberdyne HQ … Oh… and kill Miles Dyson. Don’t worry – she couldn’t go through with it. Instead, they tell Miles about the impending doom he will unleash on the world. Miles helps them break in to Cyberdyne and steal the parts, but is killed in a scuffle with law enforcement. Through lots of CGI and Arnold brand action, the liquid Terminator is tossed into a molten metal vat – destroying it. Arnold-bot decides to show his brand of humanity, and dips himself into the vat as well. End scene.
***SPOILERS AHEAD***
As Terminator: Genisys did for us in the movie theater; I am going to spare you the garbage that came pouring out of Terminator: Rise of the Machines, as well as Salvation. As I stated before – they were both awful, and Genisys waived their existence completely. So, I’ll just skip ahead, if you don’t mind.
It’s 2029, John “Scar Face” Connor is leader of the resistance against the machines. He’s being called a prophet by all of his followers for his uncanny ability to know what the machines are planning. He even knows the date and location that SkyNet sent a Terminator to. As in the first film, Kyle steps up to the plate to be sent back to save Sarah. Turns out, all the years John has spent telling him about her has gotten him all smitten… which is good for John, seeing as – well, you know. As Kyle is becoming particles, the 11th Doctor grabs John from behind, and POOF! Kyle has no idea what happened.
Well, we’re back in 1984 Los Angeles. They actually recreated the scenes from the original Terminator really well! Albeit, there have been a few alterations to the time-line.
Kyle has landed himself in a time where Sarah doesn’t really need his help. As it turns out, another T-800 with Arnold-bot’s likeness was mysteriously sent back to protect her when she was 9 by someone who erased the records from the machine’s CPU. Butterfly Effect engaged! Pops (as Sarah calls Arnold-bot) has been training her to be awesome for years now, and getting her ready for her ordained future with Kyle. Stay with me… here’s where things get dicey…
Kyle lands in 1984 LA to be chased by a T-1000 that seemed to be waiting on him. While that chase is heating up, Pops and Sarah are waiting for the original Arnold-bot so they can take him out. Then they hop across town to snatch up Kyle – who is totally freaked out, by the way, for two reasons: Sarah is not the scared little waitress John described her as; AND Arnold-bot Pops’ creepy smile.
Pops has created his own time traveling machine, worth a one-way ticket to 1997… with the idea of stopping Judgment Day before it happens. Kyle is somehow remembering a time-line that never happened, and convinces them to make a jump to 2017. You see, in this new memory time-line, 1997 Judgment Day did not happen. But in 2017, a program called Genisys will come on line, and become SkyNet.
So, Sarah and Kyle hop in the machine and go… where John and a much older Pops are waiting for them. But John isn’t John; he is now one of the machines. And he’s a really advanced one, at that… and he is the architect of Genisys. Remember that bit about the 11th Doctor grabbing him before Kyle left 2029?
I won’t add anymore that might spoil the big bits of the movie. There’s a butt-ton of Terminator brand action. There’s also a mid-credit scene that opens up for even more Arnold-bot/ SkyNet/ Terminator stories. Only time will tell on that bit, because they didn’t make as much money as they wanted at opening. BUT they did beat out Magic Mike XXL… so there’s that.
-Jay
