TERMINATOR : GENISYS : Saturday 4th July 2015.

In 1984 a young film maker made a movie that was to find its way into our popular culture and cinema sub-consciousness. His name was James Cameron, and in releasing 'The Terminator' he also established the career of an immigrant Austrian bodybuilder determined to make his name and his fortune in the Hollywood movie business - his name was Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the intervening years there have been three further sequels - 'T2 : Judgement Day' in 1991 with Cameron helming again, 'T3 : Rise of the Machines' in 2003, 'T4 : Salvation' in 2009 and the most lacklustre of the franchise, and now we have a return to form with Arnie back playing our titular cyborg hero Directed by Alan Taylor on a US$170M budget. Those first four films were made for a combined US$509M and returned collectively US$1.4B, and so last night with high expectations I saw the highly anticipated eagerly awaited 'TERMINATOR : GENISYS', and this fifth instalment in the franchise does not disappoint.

So far and for the most part the critics have been less than kind to 'T5', but for me this is very a respectable offering which owes much to the writing by scribes Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier who have woven the altered future premise tightly into the mythology of the past, and in particular the storyline set by Cameron in the first two films. The production values and the effects are solid and right on the money with what Cameron established back in 1991, the Direction is tight and well handled with a sense of urgency throughout, the cast create believable characters that you can relate to, and there are some real laugh out loud moments too that Arnie mostly delivers. What 'T3' and 'T4' lacked, this film more than makes up for. Taking us right back to 1984 by weaving the original story arc of the first two signature films into a changed past and so altering the future should have been what 'T3' was all about in 2003, but at least now we have a reboot that makes sense in the context of those first two earlier films and allows the franchise to go off in a whole new direction.

And so to the film itself. The film opens in a war torn 2029 Los Angeles and the leader of the human resistance against the machines John Connor (Jason Clarke) is pitching his final assault on Skynet to bring down the machines and save all humanity. We learn that in 1997 when Skynet became self aware it launched a global attack which wiped out three billion humans leaving the machines to dominate the planet. Before Skynet is taken down, it sends a T-800 back to 1984 to take out Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) thus preventing John Connor from being born and thwarting any future human resistance effort against Skynet. Kyle Reece (Jai Courtney) is John's trusted and loyal right hand man and he volunteers to travel back to 1984 to stop the T-800 from harming Sarah Connor, and so he steps into the Skynet time machine and is delivered back to 1984. Here the melding of that original film with this one  is very well done, right down to the younger Arnold Schwarzenegger T-800, and from this perspective it does help knowing the original source material.

As the T-800 (Brett Azar as the body double to the younger Schwarzenegger Terminator) makes his presence felt in a recreation of the scene from the original film, he is greeted by the 'Guardian' Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in older form who announces he has been waiting for this moment. This sets up the altered timeline as Sarah Connor takes out the newly arrived Terminator with some heavy machine killing artillery, as the two Terminators pummel each other. We learn subsequently that the 'Guardian' was sent back to 1973 when Sarah Connor was just nine years of age and has been protecting her ever since knowing that this day would come.

Elsewhere in town the time travelling Kyle Reece falls to 1984 as he did in the first film too, but is soon chased down by a T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun) masquerading as a patrol police officer, as he reprises the shapeshifting liquified Terminator first seen as Robert Patrick in 'T2'. As Reece and the T-1000 go head to head across town with a rising body count, a truck driven by Sarah crashes through a department store rescuing Reece leaving the T-1000 in hot pursuit. In the truck Reece is introduced to the 'Guardian' Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) but is unknowing at this point that the past has been changed and it is now not what he was expecting at all, which changes his mission again completely. Sarah explains briefly that the Guardian arrived when she was just nine years old and he has been protecting her, and training her (like a father figure which is why she also refers to the Guardian as 'Pops') ever since for the events that are now unfolding. Reece comments that the Guardian Terminator looks old, with the response coming back that human tissue ages as it does on him even though inside he is mechanical . . . he is 'old, but not obsolete' the Guardian Terminator concludes.

With the T-1000 still giving chase Sarah, Reece and the Guardian lead him to a sewer where a further fight ensues with a resurrected T-800 rebooted by the T-1000, but the two are successfully dispensed with - the latter disintegrated in a rain shower of acid. As the three collect their thoughts and recover from the last altercation the Guardian reveals he has built, in the intervening years, a time displacement machine similar to that of Skynet's but using 1984 technology. With it, Sarah plans to travel to 1997 to prevent 'Judgement Day'. However, Reece is convinced that she (and he) should travel instead to 2017 because he has had recurring visions of a future altered state in which he was born after 1997 and living a care free life in a world not yet destroyed and overrun by the dominant machines. As Sarah & Reece prepare to travel forward in time to 2017 the Guardian announces he will be waiting for them, prepared and at the ready, in San Francisco in 2017, where Skynet and Cyberdyne Systems Corporation is headquartered.

Arriving at their future destination Sarah and Reece learn that 'Genisys' is a single global operating system owned and operated by Cyberdyne using Skynet technology. Genisys is soon to go live on line interconnecting every piece of technology and hence everyone around the world. What they don't count on though is the re-emergence of John Connor in 2017 who after some re-introductions, puzzlement and lots of questions is in fact revealed to be a T-3000 nanomachine hybrid that is out to prevent the three from destroying Cyderdyne and Skynet at any cost, and is almost incapable of being destroyed.

The final set piece as Sarah, Reece, the Guardian and the T-3000 all clash in the headquarters of Cyberdyne as the three seek to set bombs to take down the five towers that will bring Skynet on line very soon. The T-3000 can be thwarted however, by any magnetic field and so the two Terminators (old and new) battle it out - with the T-3000 being disintegrated into Skynet's incomplete yet partially active and highly magnetic time displacement device, and the by now dismembered Guardian T-800 thrown into a bath of mimetic polyalloy liquid. As the place explodes simultaneously taking down the five Cyberdyne towers and Skynet, so 'Genisys' is shut down and Sarah & Reece escape to an underground bunker, safe, but locked in and with a diminishing oxygen supply. Needless to say they get out, and I wish I could say they all live happily ever after . . . but, you'll just have to watch out for the upcoming sequels!

Once the credits start to roll though stay in your seat and wait for the closing mid-credits sequence that sets up the next instalment. Suffice to say, and as you would expect, not everything about 'Genisys' was destroyed in the blast setting up the sequel due for release in May 2017 with another to follow in June 2018. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed up too for one more instalment. After it's first three days of release the film has so far made US$54M. Certainly worth the price of you ticket, and see it on the big screen - better than most critics give it credit for, and judging by the packed movie theatre I sat in last night it certainly has an audience.

  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-