Movie Review – Terminator Genisys (2015)

Released to theaters this weekend is Terminator Genisys, the latest film in the Terminator franchise and (hopefully) the beginning of a new Terminator series of films.

Terminator Genisys returns to the origins of the Terminator story, but it’s not what you’re expecting.  This isn’t simply a reboot of the original film.  Instead, Terminator Genisys pays homage to the original film while also offering people a new story as part of an alternative timeline.

Directed by Alan Taylor, Terminator Genisys returns Hollywood legend Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of the T-800 (Model 101) / Guardian.  Co-starring in the film are Jason Clarke as John Connor, Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, and Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese.  Also in the film are J.K. Simmons as Detective O’Brien and Courtney B. Vance as Miles Dyson.

Terminator Genisys begins with a voiceover of Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) explaining how life has changed drastically since Judgment Day, the moment when the machines declared war against humanity and launched a surprise nuclear attack, wiping out most of humanity.  The survivors were forced to band together and fight for their lives.  The leader of the Resistance is a soldier named John Connor (Jason Clarke).

In the year 2029, John Connor leads the Resistance in a final assault in the Los Angeles offensive.  The attack, coordinated with an attack in the Colorado offensive, is aimed at striking at Skynet‘s secret new weapon, a weapon that could change the outcome of the war.  Hidden underneath a remote storage facility is Skynet’s ultimate weapon — a time machine.

The final attacks are launched against Skynet.  The Colorado offensive is successful at stopping Skynet’s main defense grid, but Connor’s Los Angeles offensive is unable to stop Skynet before it sends a lone T-800 cyborg back in time to 1984 to kill John Connor’s mother.  If the cyborg is successful in its mission then Sarah Connor will die and John Connor, the leader of the Resistance, will never be born.

In order to stop the cyborg and save the future, then somebody from the Resistance will have to travel back in time to save Sarah Connor.  Several soldiers volunteer for the dangerous mission, and John Connor selects Kyle Reese.  The Resistance gets the time machine operating and they send Reese back in time.  Just before he travels through time, Reese notices one of the soldiers (a Terminator in disguise) grabbing and attacking John Connor.  Reese then travels through time and has flashbacks to an alternative version of his younger self.

The T-800 arrives in 1984 and encounters a small group of punks hanging out at an observatory.  Just as he is requesting their clothes, the T-800 is attacked by the Guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) / T-800 (Model 101).  Together with the help of Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), the two of them defeat the Terminator.

Meanwhile, Kyle Reese also arrives in 1984, but he lands in an alley.  After stealing pants from a bum, Reese is chased by the police.  When he’s cornered by a cop (Lee Byung-hun), Reese is shocked to learn that the cop is really a T-1000, liquid-metal Terminator.  Reese flees into a department store, but he’s still pursued by the T-1000.  Reese is then captured and detained by a pair of police officers until the T-1000 attacks them to get to Reese.  One of the officers is killed.  When the T-1000 is about to come in for the kill, Sarah Connor and the Guardian smash into the store with an armored truck and help Reese escape.  This time around it’s Sarah Connor who tells Kyle Reese, “Come with me if you want to live!”

The three of them flee, but they’re still pursued by the T-1000 who follows along in a police car.  The T-1000 attacks again, but he’s stopped by Sarah and Reese.

The trio arrives at Sarah and the Guardian’s safehouse / bunker.  Reese is surprised to learn about how Sarah already knows about Skynet and Judgment Day.  She also knows more about the future and her relationship with Reese, but she refrains from telling him that information.  What Sarah does reveal is that back in 1973 she was attacked and it was the Guardian (a machine that she refers to as “Pops”) who saved her life.  The Guardian then protected her and taught her how to survive for the future war against Skynet and the machines.

The T-1000 tracks them to the bunker and attacks them again.  The T-1000 even reactivates the destroyed T-800, and it’s Reese who finally shoots and kills the T-800.  After a lengthy battle, the T-1000 is lured into a sewer and Sarah shoots at overhead pipes containing acid.  The acid melts and heavily damages the T-1000.  When the T-1000 tries to jump out of the acid, the Guardian grabs it and holds it underneath the dripping acid until it’s destroyed, sacrificing the human flesh on its arm in the process.

After the battle, it’s revealed that the Guardian has been spending years building their own time machine.  The missing piece to power it is the CPU chip from the T-800’s skull.  All they had to do was wait until the T-800 was sent back in time to 1984, and then they could ambush and destroy it, and then use the valuable piece of hardware to control their time machine.  They couldn’t use the Guardian’s CPU as he needs to be able to activate and control the highly complicated machine.

Sarah is set on time travelling to 1997 so that they can destroy Skynet and stop Judgment Day from occurring.  Reese is convinced from the memories from his alternate self that 2017 is really the key to stopping Skynet.  According to him, it’s in 2017 when Skynet goes online and the Judgment Day attack really occurs.  Sarah and Reese start to bond as they strip naked (No, you do not get to see Emilia Clarke naked —- you’ll have to watch HBO’s Game of Thrones for scenes like that.), enter the time machine, and are sent forward to 2017.  The Guardian will remain behind and make preparations for their arrival in the future.  The time will also allow for skin to grow around his damaged hand.

Sarah and Reese arrive in 2017, but they materialize in the middle of a busy freeway.  Their sudden arrival causes several cars to wreck, and one of the cars hits Sarah and Reese, mildly injuring them.  The police quickly arrive and swiftly take the two of them into custody.  The Guardian (now aged even more after waiting for 33 years) is stuck in traffic and is unable to do anything.  He instead follows the ambulance to the hospital.

Inside of the hospital, Sarah is being treated when she and Reese learn of something called “Genisys,” an operating system that will be able to link everything about a person everywhere they go, from social media sites to phones to cars to everything else.  Genisys will be launching very soon, and billions of people are awaiting the grand ceremony.  Genisys is recognized as the predecessor of Skynet.

Police officers appear, and they’re joined by Detective O’Brien (J.K. Simmons).  O’Brien believes that there’s more to Sarah and Reese’s story as he has reviewed security footage and knows that they simply appeared in the middle of the freeway.  They really didn’t detonate a bomb as claimed by the police.  In fact, O’Brien believes that this may be linked to a rather crazy experience he had back in 1984.

The police leave Sarah and Reese handcuffed in their room, but the two of them pick their locks and escape.  Just as they’re about to leave the room, the two of them run into John Connor of all people.  John reveals several secrets and convinces them that he really is John Connor and not a Terminator impersonating him.  The three of them escape from the hospital and reach the underground parking garage.

Just when all seems well, the Guardian arrives and shoots John Connor.  It seems like John Connor is dead, but Sarah and Reese are shocked to see that he’s really a sophisticated cyborg, a nanomachine hybrid.  John Connor is really a T-3000 machine.  It turns out that John was really attacked and infected by a T-5000 machine just as Reese was being sent back in time from 2029.

Another fight takes place, this time between the T-3000 and the Guardian and Sarah and Reese.  The cyborgs take their fight back into the hospital and ultimately to a machine with an MRI.  The MRI machine is activated and the powerful magnetic force pins both cyborgs to the machine.  Reese stops the MRI long enough for the Guardian to escape, and then he reactivates it to stop the T-3000.  John Connor tries to plead for Sarah and Reese to join him, but they refuse and leave him pinned to the machine.

The Guardian then takes Sarah and Reese to a new safe house located in an old Cold War bunker outside of San Francisco.  The team loads their weapons and prepares to make a final attack on the servers containing Cyberdyne’s Genisys servers.  It’s a race against time as the clock is ticking before Genisys is activated and goes online, taking over billions of computers around the world.

Just as the T-1000 did in 1984, the T-3000 suddenly appears inside of the safe house and attacks the gang.  Most of the ammunition is detonated and the entire safe house is destroyed in a tremendous explosion.  The Guardian, Sarah and Reese escape outside, steal a school bus, and try to make a getaway from the T-3000, who was damaged but easily repaired from the explosion and fire in the safe house.  The T-3000 spots the stolen school bus and takes off after it.

The T-3000 catches the school bus just as it crosses onto the Golden Gate Bridge.  There’s another fight scene as the T-3000 disables and then wrecks the school bus, causing it to hang over the edge of the bridge.  The Guardian rescues Sarah and Reese before the school bus plunges into the water, taking the T-3000 with it.  The three of them are promptly arrested by the police and taken to a nearby police station.

During their separate interrogations it’s noticed that none of them have any fingerprints . . . . . except for Kyle Reese.  The only problem is that Reese’s fingerprints are an exact match to a young boy (Bryant Prince) who is also named Kyle Reese.  When the young Reese and his parents arrive, none of them recognize the older Reese, but the young version mentions how the older one looks like his father.

Detective O’Brien is there and he believes that Sarah and Reese are the same people who saved him from the T-1000 in the department store back in 1984.  He also knows that they aren’t dangerous.  When the T-3000 arrives and starts attacking the police officers, O’Brien frees Sarah and Reese (the Guardian easily escapes on his own).  Sarah helps the young Kyle and his parents flee to safety, and then O’Brien leads everybody else to the building’s roof.

Reese climbs into a helicopter and gets it started, and Sarah climbs on board.  Just then the T-3000 arrives on the roof and the Guardian fires at it, allowing for O’Brien to escape from the killer cyborg.  The three of them manage to take off and fly away in their helicopter, but the T-3000 pilots his own helicopter and pursues them.  There’s some wild flying as Reese tries to dodge and lose the T-3000, all while the T-3000 shoots and Sarah and the Guardian return fire.  The battle is ended when the Guardian jumps out of the helicopter and “dive bombs” onto the T-3000’s helicopter, causing it to crash just outside of Cyberdyne’s headquarters.

When Sarah and Reese land and enter Cyberdyne, they’re surprised to discover that Genisys is closer to being launched than anticipated.  The operating system is quickly evolving and gaining power, and each boost in intelligence removes time from the countdown clock.  The T-3000 also enters Cyberdyne, it’s attacked by the Guardian, and then the Guardian, Sarah and Reese have to quickly plant explosives around the servers while staying away from the T-3000.  It’s a lengthy sequence that ends when the Guardian fights with the T-3000 and keeps him pinned in Cyberdyne’s prototype time machine.  The time machine is activated and the explosives are detonated, finally destroying the T-3000.  Sarah and Reese barely reach an underground bunker just before the prototype time machine and the explosives detonate in a powerful explosion.

The T-3000 is finally destroyed and John Connor is dead.  Just as Sarah and Reese figure out what to do before the air inside of their bunker runs out of oxygen, the Guardian breaks into the secure room.  It’s revealed that the T-3000 briefly bonded with the Guardian, and the Guardian’s software was upgraded.  The Guardian then leads Sarah and Reese out of the debris that used to be Cyberdyne’s headquarters.

A short while later, the three of them visit the home of young Kyle Reese.  Older Kyle speaks to his younger self and asks him to remember that “Genisys is Skynet,” a phrase that he is never to forget.  Sarah Connor then reflects how her future is now unwritten, and she’s free to do whatever she chooses.  Sarah chooses to remain with Kyle Reese.

Terminator Genisys ends with a short post-credits scene that shows that the Genisys system core was safely hidden in an underground bunker, and it survived the explosion.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Is 2015’s Terminator Genisys a good movie?

Yes, this one is a decent film that pays homage to the original Terminator film without redoing it as a reboot.

Terminator Genisys has a plausible storyline involving an alternative timeline focusing on Sarah Connor.  It’s a little bit confusing, but at some point the timeline was altered and Sarah first encountered the killer cyborgs in 1973 when she was just a child, and not later in 1984.  It’s not exactly clear how this happened, but it did happen, and the events of 1984 still played out as the Guardian knew from its programmed history.

Nor is it explained when the Guardian was sent back in time.

When Connor’s unit attacks Skynet and discovers the time machine, we see Skynet send a lone T-800 back to 1984.  The Resistance then sends Kyle Reese back in time to stop it from killing Sarah Connor.  It’s believed that this was the only time that the time machine was used, but we know that it was also used to send both a cyborg as well as the Guardian back to 1973 to kill/protect a much younger Sarah Connor.

Are we to believe that after Reese was sent back in time, the Resistance later sent a reprogrammed T-800 (Model 101) cyborg back to 1973 to protect Sarah Connor?  Is that similar to how Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines keep having both Skynet and the Resistance continue to send cyborgs and Guardians back in time?  After all, we do know that John Connor / T-3000 was later sent back in time by Skynet.

In Terminator Genisys it’s uncertain as to how the alternative timeline is formed and when the cyborgs are sent back in time.  Perhaps more of that will be revealed in sequels to this film.  It’s a little bit annoying that these questions weren’t answered in this film, but it leaves room for further explanations in future films.

Otherwise, most of Terminator Genisys is a pretty solid film.  I really didn’t care for the actor playing the role of John Connor, but Emilia Clarke was solid in her role as Sarah Connor.  She seemed to capture the mannerisms of Linda Hamilton very well, and she pulled off a believable version of Sarah Connor.  Schwarzenegger is clearly getting older, but he did a fun version of an equally older version of the T-800.

If anything, I would have liked to have seen more of the rise of Cyberdyne and the development of Genisys.  Both Miles Dyson (Courtney B. Vance) and his son Danny Dyson (Dayo Okeniyi) had minor roles in this film.  We know from Terminator 2: Judgment Day that Miles was a key developer of Skynet, and that he was later killed when trying to help Sarah, John and the Guardian destroy Cyberdyne’s research center.  This film features an alternative timeline where Miles is still alive and his son is one of the lead engineers at Cyberdyne.  It’s also mentioned that John Connor / T-3000 has been helping Cyberdyne develop Genisys over the past few years, but that’s really it.  Hopefully we’ll see more of both Miles Dyson and Danny in the next Terminator film.

Don’t worry about having to see all of the Terminator films to get the most of Terminator Genisys.  Make sure to watch The Terminator as well as Terminator 2: Judgment Day.  Terminator Genisys stays focused on the events in those two films, and not with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines or Terminator Salvation.

Terminator Genisys (2015) – movie trailer

Terminator Genisys isn’t as great as the first two Terminator films, but it’s still a worthy film in the end.  There are plenty of references to characters and events in the Terminator universe, and there’s a ton of new material as well.

A sequel to this film has already been announced.  It’s just a question of where they’re going to take the story from here.