Saturday, July 4, 2015

Terminator Genisys (IMAX 3D)

I've always been a huge fan of the Terminator franchise, with the exception of that god awful third movie. Yes, I even liked Terminator Salvation. But when I heard they were going to make a fifth movie I thought, is this really necessary? So I went into this with very low expectations and came out surprised. While it wasn't nearly on the same level as the first two movies, it was still pretty good!

Terminator Genisys starts out much like the first movie. Resistance leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) sends his right hand man Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect his mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke) from a Terminator trying to kill her thus preventing John from ever being born. But due to something major that happens, when Kyle gets there, nothing is what he expected it to be.

Director Alan Taylor (whose previous work includes Thor: The Dark World and a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones) does an amazing job being very respectful of the first two movies while at the same time making it it's own thing. He really paid attention to details and was able to recreate the classic opening scenes from the first movie, just with a slightly different twist.

The visual effects were very nicely done. I was especially impressed with the way they were able to recreate the 1984 Terminator/Arnold. To prepare for this movie, I went back and watched the original on Netflix and honestly I couldn't tell the difference. That's how good it was.

It was no nice to see Arnold back! This time around he plays a Terminator who is reprogrammed to go back and rescue a young Sarah Connor (I think she's around 9 at the time) as well as protect and raise her. Sarah even lovingly refers to him as Pops. Arnold's scenes with Emilia, whose take on Sarah Connor I loved and she even looks like a young Linda Hamilton, were very sweet and even funny at times.

While I said this movie was pretty good, it's far from perfect. For one thing, good lord Jai Courtney can't act! His performance as Kyle Reese was so robotic most of the time. Would it kill him to show just a little emotion? I've heard from many people, and I agree with them, that he would've been better off playing a Terminator. However, he is really nice to look at so that's a plus. And he did have decent enough chemistry with Emilia.

Also, as bad ass as the action scenes were, some of them went on too long or just weren't necessary all together.

If you're planning on seeing this in theaters don't bother seeing it in 3D. It's not even noticeable most of the time.

Terminator Genisys obviously isn't the best movie in the franchise. but it's a hell of a lot better than the third movie or even Salvation. They really tried to do something different and I can't wait to see where they go from here.

My Rating: 8/10

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