Terminator Genisys Movie Review

James Cameron's Terminator became an instant action/sci-fi classic when it hit screens in 1984, with its chillingly bleak, dystopian vision depicting merciless machines wiping out humanity. John Connor was a beacon of hope then.

Genisys now depicts Skynet as a massively evolved cybernetic entity that is almost omnipresent in its own self-created reality as well as the real world. It can not only attack from the future, but from the past too. It can infiltrate the real world at will.

The Resistance is successful in a major offensive aimed at Skynet's HQ and they capture its time machine. But a Terminator (a pincer-armed T-1000) has already been sent back to kill Sarah Connor. However, another well-aged and very powerful T-800 (Schwarzenegger) who Sarah affectionately calls 'Pops' will stop at nothing to protect her from anything Skynet throws at them.

Whether Courtney and Emilia make as much of an impact as Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton did, respectively, isn't a fair comparison to make; T1 and T2 are on another level. This film occupies a niche of its own - a carefully balanced bit of the old with plenty of spanking new elements. There is a plethora of cross references made to Cameron's work by way of homage, that any fan who has loved the first two parts, will be able to spot. Oh, and this time, we get to see Byung-hun Lee step into Robert Patrick's liquid metal shoes as T-1000. It goes without saying that the effects are top-notch. Terminator Genisys overhauls the franchise that made the phrase 'I'll be back' a part of pop culture. More than anything, you'll watch it for Arnold. For as once promised, he's indeed, back.

PLOT SUMMARY

In 2029, John Connor, head of the Resistance, is out to destroy the machines and leads the war against them. In one key battle, he is notified by his army unit that Skynet will attack on two fronts — past and future, thereby changing warfare forever. Connor sets up two units, one to strike at Skynet's main defense grid, and a second (led by Kyle Reese and himself) to destroy Skynet's main weapon, a time machine hidden at a remote storage facility.

Before the Resistance can reach the machine, Skynet sends back a T-800 to the year 1984 to kill John's mother, Sarah Connor. Learning of this, Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect her. As Kyle floats in the machine's magnetic field, he receives fragments of memories belonging to his alternate 12-year-old self with young Sarah, including a cryptic warning of the events in 2017. Moments before Kyle disappears, he witnesses one of the Resistance fighters attacking John.

The T-800 arrives in 1984 Los Angeles, but is quickly dispatched by Sarah and "The Guardian", a reprogrammed T-800 (Model 101) with aged human tissue. Shortly after, Kyle is rescued from a T-1000 by Sarah and the Guardian. Kyle finds out that the original timeline has been altered: Sarah already knows about Skynet, Judgment Day, and Reese's role as her protector. After the T-1000 tracks the trio, they manage to lure it to a sewer where Sarah disintegrates it with acid.

Sarah then explains to Kyle that the Guardian was sent to protect her from the T-1000 back in 1973, where the Terminators' arrival had caused a fractured timeline that differs from Kyle's. After saving Sarah, the Guardian began training her to face her destiny. The Guardian has built a time machine similar to Skynet's and Sarah plans to use it with Kyle to travel to 1997 to change the events that would lead to Skynet's initial attack on humanity. However, Kyle, convinced that the future has changed because of his new memories, persuades Sarah and the Guardian that they should travel to 2017 instead. He believes that Skynet will begin its attack on that year of the altered timeline; Kyle and Sarah time-travel while their Guardian spends the next 33 years preparing for their arrival.

In 2017, Kyle and Sarah materialize in the middle of a busy highway and are apprehended by police. The Guardian watches from a distance and follows them to a hospital. While being treated for injuries, Sarah and Kyle learn about "Genisys", a soon-to-be-unveiled operating system that will be used on every computer system worldwide: they realize that it is Skynet's precursor. She and Kyle are then rescued by their son, John Connor. As he leads the pair to a parking garage, the Guardian appears and shoots John, who revives himself, revealing himself to be a nanomachine hybrid. John explains that shortly after Kyle was sent back, he was infected by a T-5000, and was subsequently transformed. His mission here is to ensure that the Cyberdyne Systems Corporation would receive Skynet's technology and secure its rise. John, now the T-3000, tries to convince Sarah and Kyle to join the machines and end the conflict, but they refuse. After a brief battle, the T-3000 is temporarily incapacitated with an MRI machine.

The Guardian takes Kyle and Sarah to a safe house near the Golden Gate Bridge, where they make final preparations to destroy the Cyberdyne's Genisys mainframe before it comes online. The T-3000 pursues them to the Golden Gate Bridge, where Kyle, Sarah, and the Guardian are all taken into police custody. While awaiting interrogation, the trio is freed by Detective O'Brien, who discovers that Kyle and Sarah are time-travelers. He thanks them for saving his life from the T-1000's attack back in 1984. The three hijack a helicopter on the rooftop and head toward the Cyberdyne's San Francisco headquarters, with the T-3000 in close pursuit. During the airborne chase, the Guardian dive bombs into the T-3000's helicopter, causing it to crash.

Emerging from the helicopter crash, the T-3000 enters the Cyberdyne complex and advances the countdown mechanism from 13 hours to 15 minutes. As Genisys begins to gain sentience, the Guardian, Kyle and Sarah plant bombs at key points in the facility while holding off the T-3000. After a lengthy battle, the Guardian traps the T-3000 in the magnetic field of the prototype time machine and destroys it, but not before the T-3000 manages to throw the Guardian into a vat of mimetic polyalloy liquid just beneath the magnetic field. Kyle and Sarah manage to reach a bunker beneath the facility moments before the time machine explodes, setting off the bombs, and preventing Genisys from coming online. The Guardian, now upgraded with mimetic polyalloy components, appears and helps them find a way out of the debris.

Later, the trio travel to young Kyle's home, where they repeat the warning about Genisys to young Kyle, ensuring the events leading to their arrival. Sarah is relieved believing that she is now free to choose what to do with her future. She decides to stay with Kyle. In a post-credits scene, it is revealed that the Genisys system core was located in a hidden subterranean chamber and has survived the explosion.

TRIVIA

1. While the film is on such a huge scale, as some of the scenes that have been shot are massive, the heart of it is this beautiful story about relationships. But a new relationship that the entire cast and crew formed during the shoot schedule was when they met Nasa, a small pit bull/terrier mix dog that was rescued by the filmmakers and later adopted by Director Alan Taylor. Nasa was found on the way to shooting an important scene at the facilities that NASA (the institute) have in Louisiana and he quickly became the lucky mascot of the production. Nasa was abandoned on the side of the road after losing his family in a car accident. But the constant wagging of his tail and a permanent smile on his black and white patched face was testimony to his rebirth into the Terminator Genisys family which the team considered a good omen for the movie.

2. The body of young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie is that of the actor and body-builder Brett Azar. Azar won the role following an open casting call looking for a person who can match the closest to Schwarzenegger's physique in the first film. Azar never thought of the idea of being in this film until he was persuaded by his manager Mike Lyons to audition. According to Azar, aside from being judged having the closest physique (the first round of auditions involves body and muscle measurement), it was his audition video of him reenacting the Terminator's arrival at the Griffith Observatory and his perfect lip-syncing of Schwarzenegger's line, "Your clothes, give them to me. Now." at the three punks resulted in him winning the role. His face was replaced with Schwarzenegger in post-production. Schwarzenegger was Azar's body-building idol and Arnold gifted him cigars and several body-building magazines after the first day of shooting.

3. The Nike shoes that Kyle Reese wears are exactly the same make that Kyle Reese in the 1984 Terminator movie wears.

4. Apart from "I'll be back" the other most famous line from the movie series is "Come with me if you want to live."

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out for six months, about three hours a day, before shooting started.

6. Jason Clarke was not the first choice to play John Connor. Tom Hardy was considered earlier.