Rating
Synopsis
Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back in time by John Connor (Jason Clarke) to protect his mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) from a cyborg assassin also sent from the future. However, on arriving Reese discovers that the past is vastly different to what he believed and it was he that needed Sarah Connor’s protection and help in saving the human race.
MPAA Rating
Rated PG-13 for mild violence toward CGI cyborgs – although no CGI cyborgs were harmed in the making of this movie
Plot
The year is 2029, the world is dark and miserable and what’s left of the human race is hiding underground from the evil computer system Skynet, which they created. The human resistance is lead by John Connor (J Clarke), who’s lost his good looks from Terminator 4 due to some horrific scarring (possibly a shaving accident). In a war that has spanned approximately 12 years, the humans are launching a final offensive to defeat Skynet for once and for all and restore the earth to it’s former green and blue glory – so we can carry on raping it like we did in the past I guess.
Skynet, on the ropes, use their time machine to send a T-800 cyborg, a cybernetic organism – living tissue over a metal endoskeleton (to quote the man himself), back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (E Clarke), John Connor’s mother, and in doing so prevent the leader of the resistance being born. All just like Michael Beihn told us in the original Terminator. Connor and crew are trying to stop them but are too late and decide to send one man back through the time machine after the Terminator to protect Sarah Connor and at some stage get her all loved up and become John Connor’s dad (not a spoiler)
Kyle Reese (Courtney), Connor’s right hand man, steps up to the plate and seeing as he already sleeps with a 6×4 glossy of Sarah Connor he seems like the perfect fit for the job. But, when Reese is spinning (literally) back in time, he spies some bad robots attacking Connor and he starts to experience visions of his younger self who has a cryptic (well, not really) message for him. Upon arriving in 1984, Kyle is hunted down by a T-1000, a melty goo cyborg, who is stopped altogether too easily by an ass kicking, combat wearing Sarah Connor, accompanied by an octogenarian T-800 with seemingly regenerating skin.
Baffled by the unfamiliar past, the T-800 explains that they are now in a fractured timeline and the past is no longer the past that Reese remembers. Now they must work together to stop the creation of Skynet, the end of the world, reset the future and get the nasty done so little John Connor can exist. Will they stop Skynet before it can launch all of the world’s (America’s) nukes? Does an alternate timeline exist where sequels (and sequels to sequels) are never made? Can I switch to that timeline?
Pros
- Plenty of mindless action – if that’s what your after
- Emilia Clarke does channel a bit of Linda Hamilton’s bad-assery from T2
- This CGI Arnold is a lot more respectable than T4’s CGI Arnold
Cons
- Trips over it’s own plot holes on several occasions
- Poor chemistry between Clarke and Courtney
- Overuse of tired smiling / I’ll be back gags
- For some reason decided to continue the awful “Terminator learns how to love” story line from T2
- CGI Arnold but no CGI Bill Paxton?? No fair
Verdict
It took a lot for me to overlook the shitty (I know it’s intentional) spelling of the word genesis in the title. But I did it – all I ask for in return is a movie that is entertaining, well written and doesn’t shit all over the original. I should have known better. Now, I don’t want to give out about the time travel related plot holes in this movie because a lot of those holes also apply to T2 and to a lesser extent T1. I don’t want to… but I’m going to anyway. There seems to be a complete disregard for any logic when it comes to time travel in this series of movies since the end of The Terminator way back in the 80s. In this movie, a terminator (CGI Arnold) is sent back to kill Sarah Connor in 1984, but, when he arrives a different terminator (non-CGI Arnold) and Sarah Connor are waiting for him and waste him with relative ease. Non CGI Arnold arrived back in 1973, sent by an unknown person to save Sarah Connor from another T-1000 that was sent to kill her as a child. Ok? In addition, when Kyle Reese arrives he is confronted by another T-1000 and has to be saved by Sarah Connor (who dispatches the T-1000 with similar ease).
So, we’ve established that Skynet have the ability to send back more than just one cyborg to a specific time – why stop at just two? Why not send back a load of them, with the knowledge of how to build itself, wipe out the human race and make Skynet themselves? Job done, no John Connor or any other pesky humans to stop them taking over. But no, they think “Ah, why send 3 when one can surely get the job done”. Well done Skynet, you’ve underestimated the human’s yet again!