MEDIA MONDAYS: TERMINATOR GENISYS

If you're totally unfamiliar with The Terminator franchise, stop reading this review and go watch the first two films. Minor spoiler alert but nothing terribly surprising.

Time travel is a funny thing. It raises all sorts of, "but why can't they just..?" and usually creates more plot holes than it solves. Look up the likes of Harry Potter, Back to the Future, Looper or About Time and find dozens of people wondering why they didn't just do this or how didn't that cause that to happen. It's such a fun concept but from a writing perspective, it really is a headache to do well.

Terminator Genisys rewrites most of the history set out in the first movie: Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back to 1984 to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) from the T-800. As he leaves, he sees John Connor (Jason Clarke) being attacked by the Eleventh Doctor an unknown figure (Matthew Smith) and receives new memories from an alternative history. A history where Judgement Day didn't happen, but instead an operating system known as Genisys (Skynet by any other name...) will launch in 2017.

He arrives in 1984 only to find Sarah Connor already knows her fate, courtesy of a T-800 similar to the one in T2 - affectionately nicknamed Pops - who saved her life when she was nine and gave her information regarding her future. Somebody else has been playing with history! Reese agrees to help Sarah destroy Skynet before it launches, but instructs her to travel to 2017 instead of 1997 because of the changes to the timeline he witnessed.

Confused? It's actually less confusing to watch than it is to explain.

If you've seen the trailer, you'll know that there are plenty of events from the first two films that still take place. Unfortunately, they either feel like groan-worthy fanservice or not all that surprising (and hey, the big twist was in the trailer!). I just can't imagine a lot of people are jumping in at film number five with zero franchise knowledge. Using time travel and knowledge of the timeline to their advantage (again, again) is actually mildly annoying - why not go back two years instead of two days before the launch of Genisys (Skynet)? Why not see what would actually happen if John wasn't born? Why not this, why not that.

In my review of The Martian last week, I mentioned an unpopular opinion that I thought perhaps made me a little morbid, but I was left with the same feelings after seeing Terminator Genisys. In the original film, Kyle Reese dies saving Sarah from the T-800. Since that T-800 is taken care of pretty quickly (they already know he's coming), Reese never dies in this reality. In fact, none of the good guys do this time round and there's even a semi-happy ending (yes, she chooses him again). There's just no emotional cost and you never really worry about anybody's safety.

No, really.

I remember being terrified in the original two movies, feeling Sarah's fear that ultimately makes her into a crazy badass, the loss of Kyle, the shock when the T-800 isn't the bad guy and being even more scared of the T-1000. That horror element and emotional depth is so lacking here as it is in a lot of media nowadays. Giving Skynet a face (the Genisys program is a physical AI a la Matt Smith meets Cortana meets HAL 9000) actually makes it less scary. If the idea of what is essentially cloud technology were supposed to be mild-terrifying, it fails.

All of that said, for a mindless action film it's pretty great. There are all sorts of chases (trucks, vans, buses, helicopters, you name it), melty robots, explosions, fancy gadgets and weaponry and a scene with Arnie fighting himself, The moments of humour that aren't totally cringe-worthy are definitely chuckle-worthy. Emilia Clarke, while no Linda Hamilton, looks great and holds her own and Jai Courtney and Jason Clarke are adequate as Kyle Reese and John Connor. I was excited to see a disheveled JK Simmons and mildly disappointed he didn't get more screen time.

There's a very short, "of course it didn't!" mid-credits scene (we were the only ones in our viewing who actually caught it) that shows that Skynet Genisys wasn't destroyed. I suppose the question is, how many more times can we do this? I wouldn't say give it a miss, but maybe wait until it's out on DVD.