According to some Swedish movie fan site, "Terminator: Genisys" is widely considered to be the worst Terminator movie. So obviously I had to watch it (again) and write a positive review, LOL.
The film *is* a rehash of the first two movies (at least) and the weird magic of these flicks is mostly gone. However, if you like the Terminator concept, chances are you might like this one, too. At least, you won´t regret watching it. For the nth time, the evil machines in the future are trying to kill resistance leader John Connor before he is even born, by sending "terminators" (killer robots) back in time. And as usual, Connor is smart enough to send his own people (and a good robot starred by Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to foil the plans of Skynet, the super-computer who has taken over the world and destroyed human civilization.
However, a few things have actually changed...
The most obvious is that Skynet (alias Genisys) actually manages to kill John Connor and replace him with a perfect copy who spouts Terminator-like powers. The fake Connor also travels back in time to make sure that Skynet is fully operational and can take over the world at the right time. Several changes to the "canonical" timeline from the earlier films have been made, and Schwarzenegger´s character even crack jokes about it! Indeed, there are a number of self-referential jokes in "Terminator: Genisys" about both Arnie´s old age ("I am old, but not obsolete"), uncool robots and temporal paradoxes.
Another difference is the feminist angle, or rather the faux Hollywood feminist ditto. The mercenary Kyle Reese comes across as a whimp, while Sarah Connor is supposed to be "the liberated woman". This is ridiculous, since Sarah Connor *was* a liberated woman already in the original films (complete with a huge machine gun). Now, she mostly comes across as a stupid feminist 20-something scold, a bit like Rey in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens". Apparently, this is how Hollywood imagines emancipated women to look and sound like?!
I also noticed that the super-lethal and near-immortal terminators were much easier to destroy this time around, suggesting that the resistance is gaining some experience (on all timelines). So perhaps it was a good thing that Skynet sent John Connor´s evil twin back in time instead - he is *somewhat* harder to get rid of. Not sure what to make of the fact that Skynet has been de facto rebranded Genisys - some kind of nod to trans-humanist pseudo-religion? Or is it just a counterpoint to the term Judgement Day? Note also the eerie similarity between Genisys and the World Wide Web!
As I said, perhaps not the best-best film around, but probably enough to keep you entertained on a dark weekend evening...
And remember, kids: SKYNET IS GENISYS. How´s that for small talk?
No comments:
Post a Comment