Terminator Genisys

Movie Review Written By: Adolph Vega

3D:

This is the first Terminator film to use stereoscopic 3D and I overall enjoyed the use of it. Many times the barrels of rifles extend outward toward the viewer and occasionally projectiles fly out of the screen and give an impressive pop out visual affect. 3D depth is not really presented in this movie to any significant degree. I was never wowed by the 3D nor did I remember any specific scene that really caught my eye. Every few scenes they would forget about the 3D and suddenly something crazy happens to remind you of the extra dimension. Overall I liked and enjoyed the 3D presentation of this film, but didn’t love it.

Final Score: Good 3D

Movie:

I have to admit something before the critique this movie. I really enjoy several science fiction tropes including the elements of: time travel, robots, dinosaurs, and space travel, super heroes. This is my film catnip and if a movie uses these science fiction tropes in good ways it makes me very happy. I am partial to the Terminator franchise because it combines two of my favorite tropes in an exciting fashion. I have watched all the previous Terminator films including the 3D experience for Terminator 2 and the entirety of the Sarah Connor chronicles TV show. I might be considered a fanboy toward this franchise, so I want to make that potential bias visible before I get into review. When I watch movies I always try my best to leave any preconceived bias at home and enjoy the movie for what it is. I try my best to not directly compare a movie to its predecessors and my goal is to always be as fair as possible. All that being said I have to say this movie was lots of fun, and a good action movie featuring futuristic robots. This movie essentially is a retailing of the entire Terminator series and reboots the franchise. If you have never watched a Terminator movie (where have you been in the last 30 years) you will be able to follow this storyline without a problem. The basic storyline starts in the future as humans are fighting the evil robots. The robots have a secret weapon to fight the humans, which is a time machine. The robots use the time machine to send a terminator back in time before the war and try to prevent the existence of human resistance leader John Connor. This storyline should be instantly recognizable to anyone who knows anything about the Terminator franchise, but that is only the beginning. I will not spoil the events that follow (I wish the movie trailers had this discretion) but the story has many twists and turns. I created a word in high school but haven’t ever published it before today, but I feel it fits this movie perfectly. Terminator Genisys’s time travel plot is combocomplexicated . Combination, complex, and complicated all join together to make this word combocomplexicated and it essentially means something that is really confusing and hard to understand. The science fiction concept of time travel can make for some seriously combocompleicated stories and this movie is a great example of that. So many times the movie plays with the concepts of time travel in fun and interesting ways and just begs the audience to try to unravel it all. Terminator Genisys goes pretty crazy with all the references to time travel and the paradoxes they create. I can appreciate the filmmakers for playing so much with the concepts of time travel. At times self-parody can be annoying and tedious, but for this movie I rather enjoyed it. One thing I didn’t enjoy about this movie was the acting, which I felt was weak overall for basically the entire cast with the lone exception being Arnold Schwarzenegger who is charming and enjoyable. Another aspect I didn’t enjoy was the main villain being too powerful. I understand the movie needs a strong villain but this villain seemed impossible to defeat and got annoying to watch on screen as he always found a way to survive off screen. The movie has several major plot holes and unexplained moments, but I think they are aware of those issues and left them in the story anyway for potential sequels to iron out. The movie has a corny but enduring sense of humor that helps lighten the mood after some intense action scenes. One of my favorite aspects of this movie is that the terminators seem scary again and the action scenes are intense and entertaining. The movie does have a few moments that give the characters some development and personality, but I wish it had more. Overall I enjoyed my time with this movie but it had several problems that held it back.

Final Score: 7/10

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