Will you be back? Harry Guerin finds out whether the fifth film in the franchise is more Tech Meh than Tech Noir.
Ol' Red Eyes is back but, be honest: after four films have we really been wishing our celluloid lives away for a reboot of this franchise? In terms of spectacle, so much has happened on screen since the last Terminator film, Salvation, came out in 2009 that the decision to reattach the jump leads really needed to be followed by a tour de force to equal the first two adventures in the series. Granted, there's plenty of character affection and nostalgia, but the drearily titled Genisys always had its work cut out to really impress. And for a number of reasons it's no must-see - but nor is it a popcorn-wasting disaster. If your action movie threshold is such that you've lost more weekends than you'll ever remember, then you won't feel it's a waste of a trip.
Messing around with alternate timelines and possible futures, Genisys starts with a fair old dose of déjà vu as Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back from the future to save Mother of the Revolution Sarah Connor (Game of Thrones' Emilia Clarke). From dialogue to boot runners, there are nods galore to the first film and its sequel. But instead of making you edge-of-the-seat excited about what's to come here and now in 2015, this chunk of rewind leaves you hankering more for a night in with the 1984 and 1991 vintages.
After a bit of theory spouting (honours maths in a dark room for some of us), however, Genisys gets down to its own business proper and improves considerably, making you wonder why this wasn't the starting point all along. The effects are excellent and the pacing is smart, with Game of Thrones and Thor: The Dark World director Alan Taylor making sure there's nary a pause for breath throughout. There's a sequence on the Golden Gate Bridge that's particularly impressive.
The biggest problems here are with casting and convention. Neither Emilia Clarke nor Jai Courtney has the screen charisma – yet – for these iconic roles. You don't care as much as you should about Sarah and Kyle's predicament, with the chemistry nowhere near Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn's from all those years ago. Given that Schwarzenegger's Terminator is a good 'guy', you also need one heck of a villain, and in this area Genisys also disappoints, lacking the necessary chills to really bring that character alive. More than ever, then, it's left to Schwarzenegger to really carry the movie, and he's the best thing about Genisys by a long, long way. With his performance sending up his own acting ability, the 67-year-old has all the best lines and the most memorable deadpan moments. It's just a pity they didn't work extra gags into the script.
Or, indeed, think outside the box a bit more. With the volume of Marvel movies on offer every blockbuster season, there's a feeling that we've just become too accustomed to seeing two indestructible characters knocking lumps out of each other – many of the fights here are so similar to superhero set-pieces that they fail to stand out. A '12A' cert means there are no opportunities to really get down and dirty, either.
So if this is the start of a new trilogy (we've heard that one before), there is loads of work to be done in terms of heart, hell-raising and humour for the second instalment in 2017 and the third in 2018. The Austrian Oak has shown there's lots of life in the old robot yet; now let's see if the humans can measure up.
3/5
