By no means the terrible film that many critics suggest, this is a rather generic action film, that was unfortunately hugely spoiled by the marketing, but is still a lot of fun. The plot as a standalone film makes little sense and ties itself into knots trying to explain a timeline that was already confused enough. Perhaps future films may explain some of the key questions raised, but ultimately the story shown here should work on its own, especially given the nature of the central villain and his importance to the overall story arc of all the Terminator films. Indeed, there is an interesting core concept created here in the identify of the central villain of the film, but the potential is largely wasted after the reveal in favour of a slight variation of the T-1000. That said, there is certainly a lot of fun in seeing elements of the timeline only hinted at in previous films as well as the recreation of various scenarios from the original film. The action sequences are all largely well done, apart from a terrible helicopter chase near the end of the film. Surprisingly, given his 12 year absence, the best part of the film is seeing Schwarzenegger in his signature role and it his relationship with Clarke's Connor that form the strongest character moments, despite treading similar ground covered in Terminator 2. Whilst Emilia Clarke does pretty well as Sarah Connor, Jai Courtney unfortunately is no Michael Biehn and his rather bland take on Kyle Reese makes it difficult to care about such a key character. Whether there will be any future films to take this story forward is uncertain - the biggest failing of all the Terminator sequels after Cameron's films is their efforts to continue a storyline that was essentially completed at the end of Terminator 2. But this film is a step up from the previous two sequels and there are hints that future films may explore other elements that don't simply rely on the Terminator as protector/killer.

He's back...almost.

I had my doubts with Genisys ever since the title of the movie "Genisys", which wasn't such a great title and the fact that the teaser trailer for the movie gave away the biggest plot twist in the movie. I mean, the trailer showed way too much and spoiled the film for me. The other thing that made me less exciting for the movie is the fact that movie is saying that the first and second movie never happened and this is the true Terminator movie. Like, "f**k that" I thought. My hope for this movie for being decent slowly went down as every time I hear some news from the movie if it has something to do with the cast or the little plot rumors.

But after seeing the movie it wasn't all that terrible as I thought it was going to be, but it's not great.

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as are favorite robot bad-ass and he brought he's one liners with him. Arnold is the most likable bad actor of all time and turned into an action hero icon. In this movie, he once again nails it as the fearless but likable Terminator. I can't imagine anyone else playing the Terminator but only Arnold, because it's the right role for him as Arnold can play a robot really well, and he's not even acting. Awesome work Arnold.

T-1000 is back in this movie but not for very long and it did feel out of place for T-1000 to be there. It like the film makers just threw him in there to remind you of T2, but I got to say that the run time of his screen time is the most enjoyable part of this movie. What the movie did well is making the T-1000 scary and dangerous again just like in T2. I mean T-1000 is the best villain in movie history and I'm happy they didn't screw the character up. Now after thinking about it and I did enjoy the T-1000 in the movie, but I have to admit the T-1000 didn't really need to be in this movie. He's screen time was very short and he wasn't very useful to the story; he was just throw there just to start the next action screen. If they just cut him out of the movie it wouldn't have made no difference at all and it wouldn't really effect the story. Now to those who haven't seen the movie and wondering why the T-1000 is in the movie well it's because I guesting he's been hunting down Sarah Conner maybe? However, in the movie you first see the T-1000 designed up as a police officer driving around the dark streets like most officers do when it's night time to protect the streets at night, but anywhere he comes across Kyle Reese as he steals a homeless mans clothes. Anyone remember in the original when Kyle was chase by that police officer in the opening well here it's changed, because Kyle knocks him over and ask what year is is and T-1000 attacks him just like that. OK here's the thing how did it know it's him? You could think they sent another one back in time to hunt both of them down, but Skynet doesn't know that Kyle Reese is the father of John Conner or even know what he looks. I mean if it's been waiting then how did it know that's the spot he's going to jumped off at? What if Kyle landed somewhere else? I know I went there and it may seem pointless to some but I seriously needed to get that out there somehow. Some people tell me to "just enjoy the movie and don't think about stuff like that", well that's what some lazy moviegoers say just because they can't think themselves.

The one last thing that I can say positive about this movie is the fact that it's much better than 'Terminator 3', but now I'm getting into the problems.

Now I got nothing against Jai Courtney as a person. I bet he's a nice guy in real life, but he is seriously not a good actor at all and him playing Kyle Reese was a huge miscast. At times I kept thinking he was a robot because of how robotic and wooden he's acting was. I really don't get why he's getting such big roles in big movies. The guy is not good at all.

Now another miscast was Emilia Clarke as Sarah Conner. She didn't do a terrible performance such as Jai Courtney, but all of her senses were quite cringe worthy and really awkward. There were scenes in this movie were Emilia almost did a good Sarah Conner, but those scenes don't really last long. She's good in Game of Thrones, just not here.

The story and the writing was pretty messy. I mean, this movie tries to improve things with the Terminator timeline by filling in the plot holes and the gaps, but it made things a lot worst and more confusing as this movie as more plot holes than the other Terminator movies. The movie is trying to redone the first and second movie by saying it never happened as the timeline as changed, but the real question is why change the first movie and the squeal? Leave those two movies alone. Why can't they do a ;Day of Future Past' on a film like 'Terminator 3'; I would have been fine with that and it would have been a sorry letter to the fans of last two movies, but changing 1&2? Nope!

The actions scenes in the movie were fine and entertaining enough, but it didn't really wow me that much. It's mostly quick cuts and some of the action has been shown too much in the trailer, so I wasn't all that trilled to see them as every clip and trailer showed most of the action scenes. The action isn't terrible, just decent.

There's scenes in this movie that were re-created from the 1984 Terminator movie and it didn't really feel right. It felt weird and not the good weird.

Oh and Matt smith is in the movie...for six minutes and that's it.

Overall rating: Terminator: Genisys has it's pros and it's cons. I say it's better than Terminator 3, but Terminator 1 & 2 still knocks this movie out of the park and will be a classic for years.

PS: James Cameron you lied!

I had a hard time deciding what I thought of this film. I finally saw it this past weekend (almost a year after it came out).

Things I liked:
--It's ties to the "Terminator" main storyline from movies 1 & 2. T1 is more important to have seen, but there are easter eggs for T2 fans throughout.
--I loved the effects that allowed Schwarzenegger to battle his younger self (though I wish they would have done the same thing for Bill Paxton so he could reprise his role from the 1984 film as "punk who gets killed").
--I thought it was a nice twist for who they chose as the main villain.
--I liked Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, but Linda Hamilton in T2 can't be topped.
--FX were great. Can't go wrong with liquid terminators!
--They did a good job making you question Pops' motivation throughout the movie

Dislikes:
--I had far too many questions at the end of this movie: Who sent Pops? Why? Who controls the time stream? If there will be more movies, then what's the point of all the earlier ones? How many times can Skynet be stopped/survive? Did Terminator 3 & Terminator Salvation just not count? What's the difference between a T-101 & T-800?
--It seemed like it was 2 movies in 1. The 1st half (in 1984) & the rest.
--The second portion of the film felt rushed. I just can't seem to describe it any other way.

However, having said all that...I think the movie had more good than bad. Not a classic, but worth seeing if you liked T1 & T2.

Terminator Salvation was pretty bad, but this brings it to a whole new level. What we have hear is a reboot of the canon that no one actually asked for, that no one actually wanted, and that makes really no sense.

Honestly, it's even worse than T3, which at least felt like a continuation of the series.

Here everything is changed so much that, well, there is nothing left. It took the entire Terminator franchise, and re-worked it to kill all the canon, all the mythology, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

And what you have left is a disheveled mess that is guaranteed to make the old fans give up and walk away because of the sheer needlessness alone.

Some people have said that _Terminator: Genisys_ is disrespectful to its source material (first two films) but I disagree. Out of what is clearly a massive homage to _Judgement Day_, _Genisys_ gives away the entire plot and central “twist” in its promotional material months before its release, just like _Judgement Day_ did!

All levity aside, _Terminator: Genisys_ is not great. They took some risks with their casting and it didn’t explode in their face which is nice, a lot of the effects were ver visually impressive, and it was fun to see the weapons of the future be purple lasers again, but these aren’t things that make a good movie by themselves. When you mix them up with a plot that doesn’t completely make sense, a story that’s just plain not all that great, some hammy dialogue and a lacklustre ending, then you SPOIL YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE IN THE TRAILERS *AND* POSTERS, then you’re lucky to even be coming away with even two stars.

At least it’s not _Rise of the Machines_.

_Final rating: ★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product._