From the director of Thor: Dark World Alan Taylor comes Terminator Genysis! Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese both return portrayed by new actors! Most importantly as he said in 1984, Arnie is back! The script was written by one of my faves Patrick Lussier, writer of the good Ghost Rider movie aka Drive Angry, and Laeta Kalogridis who is interestingly enough writing on James Cameron's Battle Angel. The biggest problems with making a post T2 Terminator flick are the timeline in which it fits. Is it a Sarah or John story and how can we make anything without completely writing off what has already come before it? With Genysis it figures out two of those problems and shakily conquers the third. 
The first 45 minutes of the movie are sheer gold to a fan such as myself. I could not contain the smile on my face as we are treated to Jai Courtney's Kyle Reese explaining Judgement Day and watching John Connor save a young Kyle from a Terminator as they fight on in the resistance. This is done perfectly. There is no question that John Connor is mankind's savior. He even has the same exact scars Cameron gave him in the prologue of T2 and the human resistance follows him as their perfect leader unlike the way they portrayed him in Salvation. The battle scenes leading up to the discovery of Skynet's time machine is excellent. The ships and terminators although most are CG have the same movements they did in the first Terminator films. Even the weaponry is the same blue laser blasts seen in the original films. Taylor followed the ground work to a tea. When Reese and the Terminator are sent back in time the scene from the original Terminator is recreated shot for shot. A young Arnie is seen taking clothes from street punks, although sadly no Bill Paxton. Reese takes pants from a hobo as the hobo screams to the police, "Sumbitch took my pants!" Shot for shot and word for word. Then this is where Genysis becomes a new beast entirely.
We are introduced to older Arnie "Pops" as he does battle with his younger self and it is a glorious nerdgasmic moment as he blasts away with a shotgun. Remember frail, sad, unready for the world Sarah Connor in 1984? My Khaleesi has killed her. Emilia Clarke's Sarah Connor bursts through the department store Kyle Reese is hiding in and blasts away at the liquid Terminator he faces and the tables are turned as she says to him, "Come with me if you want to live!" Both Clarke and Arnie make a great duo that have been training for years to stop Judgement Day in this alternate timeline that has been created by an event on the day they went back in time. Mirroring that of John and the Terminator from T2 but a little more Eighties and giving way to a lot more comedy from Arnie this time.
Here's where I stopped smiling as much. Judgment Day is changed and I honestly don't understand why. Skynet becomes Genysis which is an App. It gives a very dark and scary look at what we have become as a society entrusting everything we are to a computer program, but I didn't really understand how we skipped the militaristic Skynet for a social media one. It kind of explains it, but I just wasn't buying the explanation. Now the huge plot twist, which I don't know if it's in the trailer or not because I refused to see the trailer before the movie, angered me quite a bit. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly until this moment. Logically I guess you couldn't go anywhere else with the way that the protagonists are set up in this film, but it basically took a character who I fell in love with and cried for and turned him into the villain. For me this was a heart wrenching moment that shattered my world. Especially with how many times I cried in T2. The other characters don't even seem fazed by the fact they must kill him. That bothered me the most. I suppose on a level of dramatic storytelling it is a very Shakespearean move but it hurt so much I couldn't completely enjoy the rest of the film as it informs the rest of the movie. Let me say this would have been a good move if it wasn't a Terminator film.
That being said, I did not hate it. I just did not love it. There are many aspects of the film that are fun and new. Such as seeing Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor interact once again, but with both of them on a level playing field of combat skills. Arnie has taken up a father figure role in the film and definitely plays angry dad at some points toward Kyle Reese. There is a new Terminator that is very badass. It changes the game a bit as I didn't think anything could be more lethal than a liquid Terminator, but it is terrifying what makes this Terminator. It definitely has more personality, but at times can be a little over the top villain. In the end though he looks really cool and makes a great antagonist for Arnold.
It's a very solid film power driven in my opinion by Emilia Clarke and Arnie as a pair, I'd watch a buddy cop comedy of them any day. The first 45 minutes are perfection followed by time travel confusion but there's enough awesome stuff scattered throughout to keep you entertained. It could never hold a candle to T2 but leaps and bounds better than T3 or T4. I don't know where they could have gone without the plot twist but I would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't happened. It just left a bad feeling in my heart. I imagine it's the only thing that will kill this movie for people but I suggest give it a chance at least for the first half of the flick and the fun performances. After that first half though these are not your Terminator characters. You'll never guess who Dr. Who plays in this movie. There's is a post credit scene that didn't really do anything for me other than make it seem like nothing mattered that happened. So I guess it's up to you to watch that! For the fun time and heartbreak combined I give this flick Three awkward Arnie Smiles out of five.
