In Defense Of: “Terminator Genisys” (2015)

It’s Twice As Good As Terminator 3 And Terminator: Salvation Combined, But Half As Good As The First Two

I’ll cut to the chase: 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines and 2009’s Terminator: Salvation are so mind-numbingly awful that placing them side-by-side with Alan Taylor’s 2015 effort is, well, night and day.

Between Rise Of The Machines’ terrible writing, flat overall tone and inane dialogue (“Talk to the hand,” quips Arnie as a piece of you dies forever), and Salvation’s eye-meltingly boring slug-like pacing, subpar action and overly serious, po-faced delivery, Genisys is simply in a whole other league to both those aforementioned cinematic abominations.

For all its many problems, Genisys at least understands the core ingredients of what fans of the franchise want in a Terminator movie: solid action, a decent story, and dialogue that doesn’t make you want to gouge your eyes out, for a start. The fact that these ingredients haven’t been cooked thoroughly to tasty perfection is, well, a slight oversight, but it’s a movie that at least tries to tick the majority of the boxes that fans of the series want in their Terminator flicks. It’s noticeably respectful of its cinematic heritage, particularly in regards to the first two legendary pics in the franchise.

With the added context of its inferior third and fourth iterations, Genisys undoubtedly shines a whole lot brighter. That being said, it really doesn’t come anywhere near close to re-capturing the awe-inspiring quality of the first and second timeless sci-fi classics. You can’t win ‘em all, I guess.