Terminator Genisys is directed by Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World, Game of Thrones - 6 episodes) and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger (Total Recall, The Expendables), Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones, Spike Island), Jai Courtney (Divergent, Jack Reacher) and J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, Spider-Man). "John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor, but when he arrives in 1984, nothing is as he expected it to be". Is Genisys going to do a Jurassic World and re-energize the Terminator franchise or is it just overkill? 

With most reviews, I start with the negatives because there are less of them then positives but with this review, I have to start with the positives. One of the things that I liked about the film is that I found Jai Courtney to be generally good at playing Kyle Reese - even though he had his bumpy moments like the whole cast, I feel that he came off best. I also thought Emilia Clarke wasn't terrible in this movie but I felt she was miscast and that her role could have easily been played by a younger actress such as Britt Robertson. Another thing that I truly liked about the film was the soundtrack - I thought that Hans Zimmer did a fantastic job and I will probably listen to the soundtrack in my spare time. Finally, a scene that I really liked was when Sarah Connor turned on the rain/acid and it destroyed the terminator that was chasing them - I thought that was pretty cool. The goodness stops there. 

Genisys may sound similar to Genius but Terminator Genisys was definitely not the idea of a genius - a 7 year old would have probably come up with something better than this. The story was about the characters being sent back in time to where previous films have taken place which clearly states and proves that the Terminator Team have ran out of ideas. The story was really confusing as well and didn't really make sense - I don't know how Kyle Reese could have led a life before but also be a 13 year old boy at the same time? The movie tried to explain this by saying the character lives 2 timelines but that just doesn't make sense! The story is just filled with plot holes and could have been done much much better. The whole film just lacks originality - there is nothing good that you see here that you have not seen before done better. Some scenes have been directly redone from some of the original movies - more proof for a lack of ideas!

You would expect that with a $155 million budget, this movie would at least look good? Well for some parts, it does but for 99% of the time - the movie looks like it has directly been taken out of a poorly made video game. The stand out bad moment for bad visual effects for me was when the lightening was hitting the truck - it looked SO cartoony and fake! Someone behind the scenes must have noticed before they sent this out to audiences?

The acting from the supporting cast is generally extremely poor. I really don't get the craze about Arnold Schwarzenegger in these movies - he is like the human version of Groot - he is just there for comedic appeal and strength - the movie could easily be done without him. I thought that Arnold Schwarzenegger has just became a little too arrogant to think that he can be appealing in a film like this. Another poor performance came from J.K. Simmons - even though it is no where near as bad as Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending, Simmons' role is just extremely rocky - I can't decide whether this is down to his performance or the role he was written. This certainly isn't good for Simmons after his award winning performance in Whiplash. The final poor performance came from Jason Clarke who was completely un-believable at pretending to John Connor - I also found his look very unlikeable as a whole which just didn't help. Finally, even though his role is extremely minimal, Matt Smith should really stick to TV as he is not very good at playing a villain. SPOILER- the character he is playing is completely stupid and unbelievable that not even an Oscar winning actor would make it seem convincing. 

Finally, Terminator Genisys starts to be a little too clever with the whole 'technology taking over the World' thing - didn't you realise that we kind of saw the exact same storyline in Kingsman: The Secret Service earlier this year? It was literally the same concept and Kingsman did it much much better. 

Genisys is one of the worst films of the year - that is down to its generally poor visuals, rocky acting, lack of originality and stupid characters. Even though there are some moments that shine, the majority of Terminator Genisys is awful and burns out what could have been a continuation in the successful franchise. On the plus side - its higher in the year end charts then fellow robot flick Chappie.

2 STARS

D

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