Movie Review: Ant-Man

Peyton Reed (Bring It On) shows us that good things can come in small packages with Ant-Man.

Movie Review: Terminator Genisys

Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World) brings Ah-nold back to one of his most popular franchises with Terminator Genisys.


In 2029 we see the human resistance, led by John Conner (Jason Clarke, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), fighting against the machines/Skynet.  Skynet has sent back a Terminator to kill Sarah Conner (Emilia Clarke, Dom Hemingway), so John sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney, Divergent) back to 1984 to save his mother.  We now get scenes recreated from The Terminator only instead of Reese finding a defenseless Sarah, she comes crashing the gate to save him.  Someone had sent another Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hercules in New York) back to when Sarah was 9, to protect and train her.  Who knows who did it.  Just go with it.  Also, just as Reese was going back he saw John Conner get attacked and timelines got all skewed and now instead of stopping Skynet in 1997 they have to stop Genisys in 2017 and Arnold-nator is old and old Arnold fights young Arnold and........time travel.  Who can keep track.


Let's just get this out of the way.  Are there issues with the plot?  Yes.  But this is a time travel movie.  The original had the plot line of a man sending someone back in time to save his mother, who ended up falling in love with the mother and getting her pregnant with the son who sent him back in the first place.  If you can tell me how that makes any goddamn sense then you can bitch about time travel plot holes in this one.  Disclaimer: I'm not knocking the original....I am in the majority of people who think it is a fantastic film.  Let's get to the bigger problems.  The acting by two of the leads isn't great.  Jai's acting just doesn't do anything for me and Emilia was serviceable, but didn't bring anything stellar to the role of Sarah (and for being trained by a Terminator for so long, she didn't seem near as intimidating as Linda Hamilton in T2).  I didn't have a problem with the filmmakers recreating scenes from the first film just to alter them slightly.  The problem came from the actors just not filling the roles as well as the originals.  The other problem is that T1 and T2 are so great and iconic, that it lends a little credence to the haters complaint that it doesn't live up to the originals.  This is especially drawn to the forefront by the fact that they are recreating scenes.


All that being said, does this movie deserve the vitriol it's gotten lately?  No.  Of course it's not going to live up to the first two movies.  That is a near impossible task.  Was this sequel necessary?  No, but that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy it on some level.  If they are going to make an unnecessary sequel, at least they took it in a new and interesting direction.  It didn't bother me that they altered the history of the first movies....again, it's time travel.  That was the best thing they could have done.  However, besides the recreated scenes, I could have done with a few less nods to the other films.  One or two are great, but this film falls into the same trap as other movies of it's ilk.  There are so many winks and nods to the original that it draws your attention away from itself.  Despite that, this film moved along at a brisk pace.  I never got bored and there were plenty of fun action sequences along the way.  There was a problem with the big twist being spoiled in the trailer though.  That trend has got to stop.


One of the best things about the film was Arnold himself.  It was great seeing him back in the role.  I've been a fan of his forever and despite a few really bad post-governor movies like Sabotage, he's also been quite fun to watch in a few of his resurgence films lately, like The Last Stand and Escape Plan.  Genisys goes in the latter category.  They shoehorned in an excuse for how a robot can look older, but it worked for me simply because this movie wouldn't have worked at all without bringing him back.  I thought he was in top form with his one liners and action sequences.  Also, I would be remiss not to mention that there is a fun little performance by JK Simmons in this film as well.


This film is hard to review because it is an unnecessary sequel, but I also don't think it deserves the hate it's gotten.  It brought Arnold back into the role successfully and it took the story in a new direction to potentially distance the inevitable sequels from the great T1 and T2.  (Side note: never really mentioned 3 and 4 in this review because 3 wasn't good at all and I never saw 4.  Genisys seemed to forget those two movies existed as well).  I'd choose the first two movies over this one any day, but that does not mean that this film was devoid of any merit itself.  It's a solid rental that I think is worthy of calling itself a Terminator film.


Rating: ******---- (6 out of 10) [rental]


Memorable Quote:
O'Brien: Goddamn time-travelling robots!