It's been a long time since i posted a review but i'm back with a look at Terminator Genisys, the latest in the long running (out of steam) killer robot franchise. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to his most prolific and iconic role as the terminator and see's him joined by the mother of dragons and giant plank of wood. Check my review after the jump...
Well
it's been a crazy long time since I last posted a review and I
believe that wasn't even written by me, the reason being is that I
have been working tirelessly on a comic book and my Youtube page but
I have been watching movies, i've been watching a shit ton movies. I
recently sat down to watch the latest instalment of the Terminator
Franchise...TERMINATOR GENESYS, and my initial reaction was
this.....”GOD FUCKIN' DAMMIT! YOU BUNCH OF BELLENDS”...A bit
harsh I know, but if you've seen TG then you can probably guess why
that was my reaction. Looking back at the franchise is depressing,
the first instalment, The Terminator from 1984, is to me, one of the
best killer robot/chase films ever made, a gritty, violent and down
right awesome sci-fi actioner, the second, Terminator 2: Judgement
Day is one of the prime examples of how you can use both CGI and
Practical FX and Stunts to create an awesome showcase for both
disciplines and it's epic, epic in scale, action and story and one of
the best and defining action films of the 1990s. Terminator 3: Rise
Of The Machines is a decent enough action film, big on action but
it's still more of the same, protect John Connor at all costs and
prevent the apocalypse, but it played it up to comically which was
it's biggest flaw. It felt uneasy when you consider the two, straight
faced films that preceded it. Terminator Salvation, again, is a
decent action film, it's not a Terminator film really, it just kinda
has killer robots on it, It's well directed by McG, that's a
statement I never thought I'd type, but the film is a bit all over
the place. So it's been a bumpy ride since T2 with each film failing
to capture the grit and scale of the previous two James Cameron
films. So...Terminator Genesys, looked like it could be a return to
form for the franchise, but with an inexperienced director who's
previous big screen films were Thor: The Dark World and 1996's
Palookaville, at the helm, the film becomes a mess of crappy CGI and
convoluted plotting. It doesn't help that film looks like every other
“blockbuster” that gets millions of dollars thrown at it. Now
that's not to say that Alan Taylor is a bad director, far from it,
some the scenes are well shot, but he seemed a bit “in over his
head”.
The
plot follows the original plotline of T1, Kyle Reese is sent back to
1984 to save Sarah Conner before the T-101/800 (or whatever model he
is) can kill her thus killing the future leader of the resistance,
her son John. But that's where the similarities end, Sarah is waiting
for him, and all manner of hi-jinks follow including multiple
timelines ala Back To The Future 2 and JJ Abrams' Star Trek (2010)
with lots of slam bang action scenes including one comically bad
Helicopter chase that wouldn't have been out of place in the original
PS1 version of the very first Resident Evil, hell even the bike chase
at the start of Lockout looks stellar compared to this. The biggest
problem with the film is the creation of a completely new timeline
for the franchise, it brings up questions that they just can't seem
to answer, It's like the writers, Patrick Lussier and Laeta
Kalogridis consulted Damon Lindlof before writing the film.
The
cast is also quite terrible, why someone like Jason Clarke would sign
onto it after a great straight performance in Dawn Of The Planet Of
The Apes, is beyond me, it probably paid well but have a little self
respect. Emelia Clarke is a gorgeous woman, perfectly suited to her
Game Of Thrones role but woefully miscast as Sarah Connor, she just
doesn't give the role the same strong persona as Linda Hamilton and
even GOT co-star Lena Headey who played her in the TV show, I just
felt she came across more as a damsel in distress than a hard core,
trained robot killer. The brilliant Byung-Hun Lee who gave such an
intense performance in Kim Jee-Woon's brutal serial killer/revenge
flick, I Saw The Devil and his brilliantly cool gangster flick, A
Bittersweet Life is criminally underused as a T-1000, and he
brilliantly mimics Robert Patrick's movement in T2 but one minute
he's there, then he's gone, a pointless role. The same can be said
for JK Simmons' detective O'Brien, who shows up, helps them escape
then disappears for the rest of the film, what exactly was the point
of it. The biggest culprit is JAI FUCKIN' COURTNEY, this years Aussie
flavour of the month, who has about as much charisma as a fucking
dead tree, the man is dull to watch and wooden, he is definitely not
Michael Beihn, who, back in 1984, brought and intensity to the role,
a grit and the feeling that this man is hardened badass, determined
to to protect Sarah no matter the cost, Courtney brings none of that,
instead we get silly fucking jokes from him like he's a mad
scientist's snivelling man servant, he's become Igor to Sarah's
Dr.Frankenstein but plays it more like Marty Feldman than Bela
Lugosi, there is nothing in the film that can even be tied to Beihn's
Iconic performance as Reese. I could rag on Courtney forever but the
damp squib isn't even worth the words. He sucks.
But
there is a winner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, steals the show as pops,
the ageing T-101/800 known as pops. He's the best thing in it, he can
still command the screen as the robust killer robot, re-programmed to
protect instead of kill. He still has the movements down, the killer
one liners and the funny moments of robo trying to act human such as
his smiling scene, he seems to be having a blast and in one of the
more interesting ideas in the film, does come across as a more human
machine than just a bunch metal and wires under skin. The film is
worth watching just too see if Arnold can still do the robot 11 years
after his last stint...spoiler guys....he can.
The
film does have some neat ideas, the idea that pops is older because
the skin ages makes sense due to Arnold' age and the idea of a
walking talking Skynet in human form is intriging if a bit under
developed. Matt Smith's role is nothing more that a cameo. But the
film has a lot of bad ideas, the biggest one being spoilt in the
bloody trailer, it's like putting “Luke I am your father” into
the original theatrical trailer for Empire Strikes Back or that it
was Earth all along, those damn dirty apes, in the trailer for the
original Planet of The Apes, although Fox did balls up with Apes DVD
cover by whacking the Statue Of Liberty on front cover but I suppose
the film did come out in 1968 so if you haven't seen Planet Of The
Apes yet, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Overall,
it's a bit of shitty movie, the robo apocalypse is way to clean and
shiny, one thing Salvation got right was the grit and dirt of post
apocalyptic America, It's a massively miscast film too and suffers
from a terrible techno version of Brad Fidel's iconic Terminator
theme. It has one or two saving graces but it's just a massive let
down on such an epic scale that it's no wonder the film tanked at the
box office and the worst thing is, we've got another two films to
come until 2019 when the rights revert back to Jim Cameron. It's not
a great film. I'll give it 2/5....
i liked it well enough. Not every sequel is going to be a 10 but it definitely isnt a 2.
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