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Star Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Lee Byung-hun, J. K. Simmons
Director: Alan Taylor
What’s Good: Arnie is back and it’s always great to see him in the Terminator form. There never was and never will be any other actor who can essay T800 like him. Unfortunately, that’s the only delight you get because otherwise there is not much fodder in this machine-driven action.
What’s Bad: One rarely finds sequels impressive when they are a part of big franchises and Terminator Genisys is that. While the terminator may keeps mentioning in the film that he is ‘Old but not obsolete’, I will have to say its vice versa for the film as it is old and obsolete.
Loo break: Sure! All you miss is a few bullets.
Watch or Not?: Frankly, any Terminator fan would agree that the franchise’s best work was in the first two parts and post that the quality of content had a serious deterioration. The 1984 classic could have been a first mover of the genre of mankind vs machine action and hence it has now gone overboard and done to death by its fifth part. So if you are just a die-hard Arnold Schwarzneggar fan, you could enjoy it yet reminisce his previous works more.
User Rating:
It’s 2029 and John Connor is leading the forces for human resistance in the war against machines. In what they assume to be the final strike in Los Angeles, he learns about Skynet’s intentions of changing the nature of warfare by attacking their past and future. It is a moment of reckoning of sorts for the human race and hence Kyle Reese volunteers to time travel in the past to protect Sarah Connor (John’s mother) from a terminator sent back to kill her.
While Kyle is on his way back, the T800 sent back in 1984 is taken care off by Arnold’s re-programmed version whose aim is to protect Sarah. Kyle in the meanwhile has been having flashes of three different timelines. As Kyle steps foot in 1984, he is being hunted by T1000 (Lee Byung-hun) and that is when Sarah and her terminator save his life and take on the journey to erase and clear the fragments of their past and future.
What is left to see is whether Reese will succeed in saving Sarah and can they together decode what Genisys is about to do in future.
Terminator Genisys Review: Script Analysis
Aren’t we tired of all stories surrounding apocalypse and extinction of man kind thing, well, that is exactly what makes Terminator Genisys a weaker script. The film’s non-linear story telling is too much for idle minds stepping out to enjoy a film. The whole past and present timelines are not exactly startling since Sarah Connor’s story has been known to us all ever since James Cameron gave us the first Terminator film. The convoluted plot is filled with twists that lack sense when the pieces of the puzzle come together in the end. It is sorry to see Arnold’s Terminator now walking and talking like a mutated robot with a human touch, something so stark opposite from where it started all. The save the world story looks like Emilia Clark’s Sarah as a school girl who knows how to fight her demons yet she has an old yet tough bodyguard and then there has to be a long lost love from the past. Minus its special effects, this film could have easily been a Bollywood script.
Terminator Genisys Review: Star Performances
Arnold Schwarznegger as Terminator is of course a delight even in his oldie look. The guy knows how to punch where it hurts. His robotic smile is killer and we can’t help but laugh every time he does that. Having said that, I would definitely want him to no more do any other Terminator films.
Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor seems too uncomfortable in this film. She may be slaying dragons in Game Of Thrones but she does not seem to excel at shooting bullets over Skynet’s terminators.
Jason Clarke does a darn good job as John Connor. He seems like the only actor in the film who wanted to make sure the film does not look to sketchy as a sequel.
Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese puts up a decent show. His character itself is too rom-com hero types in this one and that itself disappoints. I wish there was more edge to him, Sarah comes out much stronger a character over him.
J.K. Simmons does a small role in the film.
Terminator Genisys Review: Direction, Editing and Screenplay
I think it would be wrong to blame Alan Taylor for not serving us a strong dose of metal vs man film. It is extremely hard to do a better job than James Cameron who laid the base for this franchise and hence all the recurring films have been disappointments of sorts. While the special effects are good enough, there is no particular scene that truly impresses or thrills you with its 3D elements. As an experience, Terminator Genisys turns out to be so predictable that you can anticipate the second half from quite early on. Other than facing lack of conceptual intelligence, Taylor even falters badly at providing possible visual thrills.
Terminator Genisys Review: The Last Word
Terminator Genisys is probably the weakest films of the franchise and given a choice, I would prefer to watch the first two parts once again. The story strays off its course and brings in ample of monotony. I am going with a 2/5 for this film.
Terminator Genisys Trailer
Terminator Genisys releases on 1st July, 2015.
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