Terminator: Genisys (2015)

 

Welcome to the worst of the Terminator-franchise, by far.

No, that is no hyperbole. 'Genisys' really is horrendous.

Get ready for some major fuckery.

At its core, this is the first Terminator all over again, but they reset the entire timeline because they had no ideas how to keep this interesting and in doing so just rammed it all down into the ground. 

Sigh.

Anyway...

Kyle Reese is sent back to 1984, but just before he leaves, he sees something attack John Connor. When he gets to 1984, the liquid T-1000 is there waiting for him and he is saved by Sarah Connor accompanied by a T-800. They take out the original T-800 and then they travel to 2017, because apparently now everything is reset and the future is completely different, thus the events change. Now Skynet is no longer a military program, but something tied in to all devices.

Yes, literally a killer app. You see what they are doing with this attempt at social commentary? Do you? DO YOU? They hammer it in, repeatedly. 

As if this wasn't enough, it turns out John Connor is also in 2017, but get this: he is now a Terminator of sorts and he himself has developed Genisys at Cyberdyne ànd the time travel device. 

If your head is spinning, that's normal. 

So they blow up Cyberdyne, stop the app from going online and things were once again forever changed. 

I just wish they had changed it so this abomination was never made. 

See, you can't have callbacks and winks to the other films, because this just makes this one stand out all the more as the boring, unintelligible piece of hexagonal nuts it is. Nothing makes sense. No really: nothing. 

Also: John Connor is now a Terminator? What? Why? How? Nevermind, the film doesn't care and neither will you. 

Also also: for a couple of soldiers from a post-apocalyptic war, Kyle and John sure look well fed. Jay Courtney is ripped beyond belief. Sure, tough life in the future, bro. Remember Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese? He was lean and scarred, just as a soldier would be in that timeline. And there are no real stakes here, as the opposition is laughably inept. You really wonder how Skynet ever took over the world in the first place.

And dare I say it? Even the always lovable Arnold Schwarzenegger is slumming and unable to save this one. 

To be somewhat fair: this isn't the fault of the actors. They just do what they can with the poorly written dialogue and most of the time they are forced to spew exposition after exposition, just so we as viewers don't get hopelessly lost. 

Points for including JK Simmons, though. 

Just ignore this one.