So, I’m playing catch-up. It’s much better than watching the news.
Terminator scared the living crap out of me as a child. I think I was in elementary school, and the metal skeleton haunted me for years. It was also where many of us Gen-X kids met Arnold Schwarzenegger for the very first time. Life-changing.
Then? T2. The first of the “bad guy is now the good guy” switcheroo films of the nineties. The special effects were groundbreaking, and that Guns N Roses song blew us all away! That was my senior year in high school. It was a special time.
I think I’d already been through a divorce by the time Terminator 3 came out. I remember it was more of the same from T2, but less of what made it magical. Eddie Furlong didn’t come back as John Connor for one reason or another. It advertised itself as the battle from Judgement Day, but only delivered in the final ten minutes of the film. It was pointless.
After that, we got the movie I always wanted: the bad-ass John Connor rippin’ Terminators in a future wasteland film. A Mad Max knock-off in a Terminator world. The trailer made my nipples hard (I’d been through my second divorce, I think; weird times), but the film never had a chance. Society entered the world of cancel culture, and The Dark Knight star, Christian Bale, got caught on a hot mic belittling a crew member. Bale’s career was ultimately fine, but the franchise suffered. It was a much better film than Terminator 3.
After that? What could you do? Where could you go? It appeared as though Terminator was done for.
Enter the Disney Star Wars aquisition.
Every Gen-X franchise suddenly got their own legacy sequel, whether it needed it or not. The purpose of the films? To begin new trilogies with cameos from original cast members for quick cash. Some of these legacy sequel films actually “ate” portions of my soul; my metaphorical childhood. For ten whole years, I didn’t bother with where the Terminator franchise wanted to take me. I was fine right where it left me.
There was even another sequel from the summer before the pandemic, and it looked promising, but that meant I had to watch the 2015 film. I didn’t bother.
No one I personally know saw this film or the one that followed, and that’s strange. You see, I was what they called a card carrying member of the nerd-herd back in my day, folks. Terminator was one of those things you weren’t allowed to talk about when your girlfriend came over. Aliens, Star Wars, Star Trek, Blade Runner; that shit was taboo, and chicks didn’t like it. It wasn’t until The Phantom Menace, when capitalism met plastic action figures in their glory days, that nerd-culture went mainstream.
Then came “The Big Bang Theory”. BLAM! Nerds got laid. My theory is that we all truly died in 2012, and our current world is Hell. Screw this timeline, but I digress. I’m also a completion-ist with a bit of OCD, unfortunately. I found this and the other film for five bucks each. Pokemon-logic film collection. Gotta watch ’em all.
Note: This film came out over a decade ago. Even though I just watched it, the normal rules do NOT apply. I can beat the crap out of this movie if it deserves it.
That said, let’s see what the fine folks at Wikipedia have to say about this film (please donate to them if you can):
Terminator Genisys is a 2015 American science fiction action film[4] serving as a reboot and the fifth installment in the Terminator franchise. Directed by Alan Taylor from a screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising his role as the Terminator, alongside Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, J. K. Simmons, and Lee Byung-hun. Despite Schwarzenegger’s involvement and the mirroring of certain events from the previous films, the film is a standalone entry with no canonical connection to the prior installments; it is described as a “reimagining” of The Terminator (1984).[5]
The plot follows Kyle Reese (Courtney), a soldier from a post-apocalyptic 2029 where humanity wages war against Skynet. Sent back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), Reese discovers the timeline has been altered—Sarah was raised by a reprogrammed Terminator (Schwarzenegger) sent to guard her. The film explores the consequences of Skynet’s interference with temporal events.
Development began after the Halcyon Company, then-owners of the franchise, filed for bankruptcy following the underperformance of Terminator Salvation (2009). Megan Ellison‘s Annapurna Pictures acquired the rights in 2011, partnering with her brother David‘s Skydance Productions. However, Annapurna dropped their involvement, although Megan still retained executive producer credit. The producers consulted original creator James Cameron and drew inspiration from the first two Terminator films. Principal photography occurred mainly in New Orleans and San Francisco, with visual effects handled by six companies and practical effects by Legacy Effects.
Premiering at the Dolby Theatre on June 28, 2015, and released widely on July 1, the film was largely panned by critics for its plot, though some praised the action sequences and Schwarzenegger’s return. It grossed $440.6 million worldwide, making it the franchise’s second-highest-grossing entry after Terminator 2: Judgment Day,[6] yet it underperformed relative to expectations. Planned sequels and a TV spin-off were cancelled, though a video game, Terminator Genisys: Future War, was released in 2017. The franchise continued with Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), a direct sequel to Terminator 2.
The Rev-iew:
The year was 2015. It was the pre-Trump era. Most things in reality made sense, so movies could get away with being nonsensical. Now, daily life is nonsensical, and no one cares about movies. I think the machines won.
Skynet is Trump’s “Golden Dome” he wants to build in Greenland. Just stop pissing everyone off, and they won’t shoot missiles at you! Besides, we all know there is no such thing as a modern day John Connor. There’s nothing in the lyrics of “You Could Be Mine” about writing strongly worded letters!
The film begins in the moment when Kyle Reese volunteers to go back in time to save Sarah Connor from the first Terminator. What follows is a rather impressive shot-by-shot remake of the ’84 opening sequence. Then Emilia Clarke – 2015’s “flavor of the year” – shows up with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It gets convoluted AF after that.
First of all, the future soldiers all look like high-tech bodybuilders. That wasn’t the case in the original film. The survivors were all malnourished and barely hanging on. Reese himself? Too bulky to resemble the original actor.
Even though I was almost fooled into loving the Daddy/Daughter dynamic between Sarah and the Terminator, this felt like every other film from that time period. Like an early Marvel movie about a supporting character for a quick studio cash grab. It’s riddled with CGI and bad, early-development de-aging effects, and it shows.
Then, once the film takes for granted that we’ve swallowed those hard pills, it turns into an era-cliche multiverse romp full of techno babble and 2015 bro-humor. It was in the height of Clarke’s popularity, though (think Game of Thrones) and that incredibly cute nose would surely put butts in seats. That’s what everyone likes about Emilia Clarke, right? Her nose?
Right about that time, a creepy John Connor comes into the timeline, in a year I’ve forgotten, and says some nonsense. I honestly gave up around this point in the film. Another cloud-fear/AI propaganda bore.
The Nacogdoches offensive? I want to hear more about that! I’ve scoped out real estate there! There’s a much better movie in a writer’s bottom drawer. The T-800 and young Sarah on the run? Could’ve been very “The Last Of Us”. Nope; it becomes the damn Matrix, with JK Simmons as a useless Fox Mulder side character.
This feels like two different movies forced to have sex in the editing room; the same as the impromptu love story between Reese and mama Connor. It’s the worst chemistry in a modern Hollywood film since 8 Mile, and I let that one slide because Brittany Murphy was a damned queen. Rest in peace.
Ultimately, John Connor, who’s dressed like a dork politician, is the film’s villain, and we’re supposed to get emotional about a character played by five different actors at this point. That’s not how nostalgia works, y’all. Just ask Harrison Ford. Or Ace Frehley.
Suddenly, a pointless car chase breaks out, and I’m stuck trying to remember which Transformers movie I’m watching. I begin looking for odd quirks and notice several cast members with slight facial…deformities? Just odd faces, I mean. Like, I hope it’s not too rude of me to say so – I ran it by my wife, and she’s usually pretty straight forward, not that I’ll blame her if it causes an uproar. Ultimately, no one likes me anymore, so who’s reading this; am I right? – but it’s like they got a bulk discount at some underground North Hollywood talent agency for actors with slight facial deformities. It could totally be a REAL thing.
That said, it would make a less-appealing main character seem more appealing. It’s like he’s on sale, in a way. It makes good sense, from a producer’s standpoint. Like there was a “cuteness” budget.
In the final act, we get our slow-motion, CGI, mic-drop actions sequence where physics mean fuck-all, and everyone becomes a one-liner genius for the sake of potential trailer material. When the credits roll, you can tell they had plans for sequels. One occurred four years after this one, and I purchased it as well. I know nothing about it, but there’s no way it could be worse than Terminator Genisys.
Maybe there was a plan for more films along this story line and I hope it never happens
This is the worst film in the Terminator franchise and quite possibly the worst of all the 2015-ish legacy sequel films. The only thing I’ll take away from this movie is when my wife referred to it as Sperminator Vaginosis. Where have all the good times gone? How bad can Terminator: Dark Fate be? Fingers crossed.
2/5
The Gonzo Wolf 
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