While watching Terminator Genisys, one thought kept echoing: "We need to go back in time and rewrite the screenplay."
As the fifth installment in the Terminator series—a franchise that, like Alien, turned two iconic films into a string of disappointments—Genisys follows Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (70% on Rotten Tomatoes) and Terminator Salvation (33%). Those scores feel generous in hindsight.
Trailers promised hope: Arnold Schwarzenegger reprises the T-800, with a fresh twist on the original timeline through layered time travel. The cast boasts Emilia Clarke, J.K. Simmons, and Matt Smith (Doctor Who alum). I went in spoiler-free, wondering if this could revive the series.
Is Terminator Genisys worth your time?
The short answer: No. It's among the dumbest blockbusters I've seen—worse than The Phantom Menace. Dive into our detailed, spoiler-light geek breakdown below.
Great actors need strong scripts and direction. Liam Neeson shines in Schindler's List but flounders in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Genisys suffers similarly.
Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones' Daenerys) seems uncomfortable, lacking the fierce physicality Sarah Connor demands. Contrast her with Lena Headey from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, who embodied a woman ready to "kick your teeth down your throat."
Jai Courtney's Kyle Reese (Die Hard vet) conveys nothing—no hardened vulnerability from the original, just biceps in a trench coat. Their romance is utterly unconvincing.
Jason Clarke nails adult John Connor when the dialogue allows. Matt Smith appears pointlessly. J.K. Simmons and Arnold steal scenes—Arnie chews scenery with gleeful abandon.
Time travel fueled the franchise's best stories: John Connor sacrificing his friend in the original, or targeting innocent scientists in T2: Judgment Day.
Genisys introduces "nexus points," letting travelers access alternate memories. It's a convoluted, mumbling mess—Arnold barely explains it. Compare to Sarah Connor Chronicles, where dying travelers scrawl bloody warnings: far cooler.
The film sentimentalizes Terminators, undermining their chilling machine nature. Terminators thrive on emotionless relentlessness. Questions of machine consciousness—echoed in real AI debates—are timely, but Genisys fumbles them. What happens when self-driving cars or drones face life-or-death ethics? The franchise at its peak probed this; this isn't.
The plot meanders with half-baked ideas, Terminator nods, and blockbuster tropes—like a Michael Bay explosion fest without direction.
Hollywood often blurs robots into humans (Battlestar Galactica). Terminator excels by embracing mechanics: visible rods, joints, motors—like Boston Dynamics prototypes.
Upgrades like the T-1000 diluted this grit. Genisys' magnetic moth swarm is slick CGI but lacks plausibility. Turning Skynet into an app? Laughable. The anti-tech theme has never felt so shallow.
Effects impress: de-aged Arnold nails the uncanny valley, T-1000 fights dazzle. But future scenes look unfinished—inexcusable for a blockbuster.
Terminator Genisys is bad—After Earth or Battleship bad. Skip unless you're a die-hard fan craving robot brawls. Stream Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles instead—smarter, more satisfying. Wait for Rifftrax on this one.
MakeUseOf rates Terminator Genisys 1 out of 5 stars.
