Terminator Genisys (2015)
Writers: Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier, created by James Cameron, and Gale Anne Hurd.
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Guardian), Jason Clarke (John Connor), Emilla Clarke (Sarah Connor), Jai Coutney (Kyle Reese), J.K. Simmons (O'Brien), Dayo Okeniyi (Danny Dyson), Matt Smith (Alex), Courtney B. Vance (Miles Dyson), Byung-Hun Lee (Cop/T-1000), Michael Gladis (Lt. Matias), and Sandrine Holt (Detective Cheung).
Warning: Spoilers
Below contains important information about the film and it's plot, if you haven't seen the film i urge you not to continue.
The year is 2029, the resistance commander, John Connor (Jason Clarke) narrates over the current events, he speaks from the human point of view, a view skewed from the tarnished world they live in. A world that has been taken over by the machines, it's core, the framework is a machine called Skynet. The planet hasn't always been controlled by the machines, there was a time where the meadows were green, a time where people, humanity communicated by interaction. When Skynet was born, the world as we know of it, was destroyed, and what emerged was something sinister, diabolical, emotionless. The machine was able to think for itself, and as a result was the annihilation of the human race. End narration; John Connor (Jason Clarke) looks at the group of people he calls family, a unit that has put their lives to fight the machine, Skynet.
John Connor (Jason Clarke) has received important information regarding Skynet's next strike. The machine will strike on two fronts, past and future, it will change all the planning and hard work the resistance has accomplished thus far. But, everything John Connor does is planed and thought out, the machine can strike two important locations, but the resistance will be ready, and everything will change in the favor of humanity. One group will attack the main defensive grid, while the other will strike at Skynet's main weapon, a time machine device hidden in a remote location. He looks at his men and address them, with words of encouragement, "I look at each of you and i see marks of this long and terrible war. If we die tonight, man kind dies with us."
Skynet's processor and thoughts are so far ahead of the resistance, every mistake is taken into a numbered event, with every mistake, the machine calculates events, and creates an event that will fit the situation. The machine has sent a T-800 Terminator to 1984, in efforts to win the war, it must kill the mother of the resistance leader, John Connor (Jason Clarke). The resistance arrived to late, the machine had achieved a goal that was a main piece to the plan. The war, is not over, every piece is indeed important, but John Connor has his Queen ready to strike at any time. The resistance sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) to 1984, he must save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) from the T-800. The pieces are set in motion, everything will change, humanities only hope is Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney). The device is set to 1984, as Kyle Reese is in process of travailing to another time, just before the jump, he notices someone grabbing Connor from behind, his look is evil, as he glares into the eyes of Reese.
1984 the T-800 has arrived from the future, the blue looking sphere dissipated, as a huge, hulking naked figure walks over to the punk rocking group. His look is hard, no emotion, only a directive, find and kill Sarah Connor. Not to far behind, another T-800 series, he is the guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger), armed with a shot gun, he fires a shot, the fight between two T-800's is iconic, because John Connor was right, with every laid out plan, comes problems, and different turn of events, the guardian will destroy the T-800 ensuring the timeline is on the right side of the humans.
Rant: The film altogether is really good, since Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation, this film is a huge step up. The overall plot is good, despite the recent trailers that came out before the film, it revealed to much, i guess the studio needed to reconfirm audiences about the quality of the film. The problem with revealing to much in a trailer is it gives the plot away, when is the studio going to realize that audiences are not stupid. Remember the movie, the Matrix, it came out in 1999, and the trailer was simple, didn't reveal much, so audiences went to see it, and the film was a real treat. With that being said, i really did not want to go see this film, not because of the content, or special effects, but the plot points that were revealed in the trailer. Sometimes it's best to keep your plot hidden, show a little but not the whole plot line. Still the film only managed to hold some plot behind but the studio still went with the trailers.
The actors in the film were all good, even the T-1000, seeing it on film again was a cool idea. The actor, Byung-hun Lee did a wonderful job as the liquid machine. Arnold reprising his role was not only cool, it made sense plot wise, that being said, my favorite was Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, she played the character to perfection. The part of John Connor was done by Jason Clarke, who was better than Christian Bale, although with ultimate respect to the actor he was working with a bad script, and Salvation took a major hit because of it. Genisys erased both Terminator 3 and Salvation from existence, a wasted effort in my opinion, but i understand why they went that route, I'll go into that later. Kyle Reese was played by Jai Courtney a good actor, as a Reese no one could compare to Michael Biehn but again with respect to that actor, Courtney did a wonderful job, and i will not hold it against him, he really did perform well as Reese, i pictured him in, and it went well. I even went and imagined him as the 1984 Reese, not because I'm weird, but because it happened in the film. The scenes with Reese in 1984, was redone with Courtney, two big thumbs up. And last up is J.K. Simmons, did an awesome job as he reprises his role as O'Brien, in fact this actor and his scenes were done with taste and give credit to the original Terminator.
The film has really good effects and the actors did their thing, but now let me go into why, they had to delete Terminator 3 and Salvation. Those films never happened because it would entail out of the box thinking, dealing with a time paradox in the film was good, and debating it is a mind-bender, it would entail making this film, longer and a planed three part trilogy. The plot, the inner works of this kind of film is all about details. Remember when the Guardian had his own version of Skynet's time machine, he somehow had the parts, and yet he made the trip to 2017, after Kyle and Sarah did, he then waited 30 years. Even after the jump, the guardian would not have made it to their jump point, maybe he would have arrived later, much later but at the right time and place was a huge mistake in the film. The reason James Cameron takes so long to film a movie is because he pays attention to detail, that detail, even the smallest can be a difference in the film. The main problem with erasing those films is that they happened, and it will be in the minds of every movie audience. Remember the studio's think we're stupid, and since it's all about the money, instead of delivering a detailed quality film, they think that the special effects is the dream-catcher, they're 100% wrong on all fronts. The plot, and story is the main force in your film, leaving out details will diminish everything you've worked for.
Terminator films are all about the timeline jumps and paradox, what will happen if we are jacked in to much on our phones, tech devices that destroy the very human part about us, communication. We need to talk to friends, family, people altogether without these devices. We don't really need them, we think we do, but in reality we have forgotten what it's like to talk face to face. The scary part about Genisys is that the world was ready to jack into a system. The same machine that was ready for everyone, and then once it was time the machine annihilated the human race, the film really managed to focus on those events. The really good plot point here is the title, Gen is the beginning, Sys is the system involved in our destruction. All in all a really good film, it brings us back to those scenes we loved in the original Terminator film, the time jump plots are great in this film, it's not perfect, but better than Terminator 3 and a huge step up in the series.
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