Movie Review: Terminator Genisys


Full confession that I hope doesn't discredit this review: I thought I had seen at least one of the Terminator movies before seeing this one, but in fact, I haven't seen any of them. After seeing Terminator Genisys, I am going to start the previous four movies from the beginning, but in my opinion, this film functioned well as a standalone sci-fi movie.

Around the year 2021, John Connor (Jason Clarke) and Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) are fighting against Skynet, a self-aware computer program that tried to destroy the human race. Connor wants to send Reese back in time to protect his mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), because he thinks that Skynet is going to try to kill her then (in 1984) so that he'll never be born. Conner cautions Reese that Sarah won't yet be the "badass" mother that he had growing up, as she'll be younger and he may have to convince her about Skynet and who he is. When Reese arrives in 1984, though, he finds that she's well aware of the situation, and along with a Terminator she calls "Pops" (Arnold Schwarzenegger), he will have to time jump yet again with them in order to prevent the spreading of Skynet once and for all.

The cast in this movie was great. Schwarzenegger was in the original Terminator movies, and I love Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones and Jai Courtney from the Divergent series. "My man" J.K. Simmons (a Detroit native) also had a small, but funny supporting part here, and Courtney B. Vance has a supporting role also.

Yes, see this movie. I saw it in 3D and I actually would recommend seeing it in 3D if you can, because they used it very well. I love time travel movies, too, and this film reminded me a bit of The Time Traveler's Wife and Looper, as well as Frequency. Others who I saw the screening with did complain that the film did have too many "loopholes" or plot inconsistencies, but I found it to be a fun "popcorn" movie, and one that you will enjoy seeing at the theater.

Terminator Genisys is in theaters today, July 1st, and is rated PG-13 with a runtime of 125 minutes. 4 stars out of 5.

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