Review: Terminator: Genisys

Arnold Schwarzenegger is back in his most iconic role in Terminator: Genisys, the latest attempt to milk money out of the blockbuster franchise. Like this year's Mad Max: Fury Road and Jurassic World and the upcoming Ghostbusters, Genisys positions itself as a new breed of reboot - one that pays heed to, whilst simultaneously revising, the canon by cherry-picking some narrative strands and disregarding others. In this case, screenwriters Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier return audiences to the events of the original The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It's a wise gambit, considering the hollow bombast of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and the dreary drudgery of Terminator: Salvation.

Compared to Jurassic Park and, to a lesser degree, Mad Max, the Terminator mythology lends itself to limitless possibilities. This is, after all, a film whose main theme is tinkering with the narrative to rewrite the outcome. Kalogridis and Lussier seem to understand this, and that understanding frees their ambitions. Genisys contends with at least four time periods - 1973, 1984, 2017, and the post-apocalyptic future of 2029 - and at least two timelines, which can be migraine-inducing if you choose to pay close attention to the plotting.

The opening prologue sets the groundwork. Skynet, a computer program designed to automate missile defense, decided that humanity was a threat to its existence and decimated most of mankind during 1997's Judgment Day. Those who survived looked to John Connor (Jason Clarke) as their saviour to win the uprising against Skynet's killing machines. The rebellion does claim victory, but not before Skynet sends back the original T-800 (Schwarzenegger) back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), thereby preventing the birth of the future leader of the resistance. John's trusted disciple and friend, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney), volunteers to go back in time to save Sarah, unaware of the fact that he is also going back in time to father his best friend.

It is at the point of Kyle's departure that the new narrative is established. He witnesses John being attacked by an advanced Terminator (Matt Smith), the consequences of which will come as no surprise to those who have seen the film's spoiler-heavy trailers. As Kyle travels back in time, he begins to recall childhood memories which he never lived through. One memory, in particular, is a warning from his younger self: Genisys is Skynet. When Kyle finally arrives in 1984, he quickly realises this version of Sarah is not the damsel in distress he expected. In fact, in this timeline, Sarah was saved by the T-800 when she was nine years old and the android has since served as her mentor, protector, and father figure. She and "Pops," as this T-800 version has been nicknamed, have already dispatched of the other T-800 programmed to kill her. The showdown between Schwarzenegger and his younger self is about as amazing as one could hope for, though it lasts briefer than one would expect. After saving Kyle from the deadly, shapeshifting T-1000 (Byung-hun Lee), Sarah and Pops inform him of the new mission: to destroy Skynet and avert Judgment Day.

Certainly Genisys is a far better offering that the last two installments, but that's damning with faint praise. There are some exciting action sequences, but the narrative is inelegantly executed (there is still expository dialogue past the halfway mark) and, ultimately, the elasticity of the narrative conceit is what diminishes the humanity of the tale. How can one invest in any of the characters when most of them can be regenerated or reconstituted through narrative loopholes? The romance between Sarah and Kyle fails to ignite, much less simmer. This is partly due to the lack of chemistry between Clarke and Courtney, and mostly due to the attention spent setting up the dysfunctional triangle between Pops, Sarah, and Kyle. There is nothing wrong with emotional dysfunction - remember John Connor's parentage - but the screenwriters don't quite nail the self-aware, tongue-in-cheek tone required to make the squabbling work. Instead, Kyle and Sarah come off as bickering teenagers being chaperoned by a humourless, leather-clad Austrian.

More interestingly, Sarah bristles against the predestined coupling between herself and Kyle, and one does wonder what territory could have been charted had Sarah hesitated between fate and free will. If that narrative had been nurtured, then a more resourceful actress than Clarke would be required. Clarke is a lovely young woman, and it's impossible not to watch her even as it's impossible to ignore how terribly wrong she is in the role. She can't quite modulate her performance and she most definitely cannot pull off an inherently laughable line like, "I was raised by a machine to kill cyborgs and survive the nuclear apocalypse." Courtney has his own set of problems, namely that - his appearance in the Divergent series notwithstanding - he tends to disappear when cast in big budget action films. The Australian is a fine actor with solid potential - see Unbroken and The Water Diviner - but you'd never know it from watching him here.

Of course, Schwarzenegger has always been the main attraction, and the filmmakers have come up with a technological solution that ensures his involvement, in one form or another, for as long as this franchise lives. It's been said by many a fan and critic that a Terminator film isn't a Terminator film without Schwarzenegger in it. His absence in Salvation would lend credence to that as would the lack of any viable Terminators to take his place. However, I would argue that the franchise can do without its seemingly indispensable star. What it cannot do without is the presence of James Cameron at the helm. The franchise has never been the same since he left. Jonathan Mostow, McG, and now Alan Taylor have had their turns at bat and none of them come close to touching Cameron's flair for action and special effects, which he underpinned with compelling human drama.

Terminator: Genisys

Directed by: Alan Taylor

Written by: Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier; based on characters created by James Cameron and Gale Anne Hurd

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke, J.K. Simmons, Courtney B. Vance, Sandrine Holt, Dayo Okeniyi, Matt Smith, Byung-hun Lee