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[Review] ‘Terminator Genisys’ Feels As Robotic As Its T-1000s
In a world where humans are the minority, and our own technology has united against us in the mission to rid the earth of organic life for good, it seems that only defeat lies ahead for these once powerful nations. It’s just a few years after Skynet, a highly intelligent computer program integrated into every facet of society, wiped out billions of lives in a single moment. Known to the few survivors as “Judgment Day”, this devastating event marked the time when hope seemed all but lost for the future of humanity. Then came John Connor. A powerful leader characterized by perseverance and scars that suggest he’s been down in the trenches, Connor is a revolutionary in a time of passive resistance; a man who took it upon himself to rally what was left of the humans to fight for survival, urging his fellow men to defend themselves, and declaring the war far from lost. A shining beacon of hope, John leads the human resistance in the fight against Skynet and its army of artificially intelligent killing machines. However, the more battles he wins against the machines, the more impervious their plans become, as Skynet develops a way to win this war before it ever started. By using their advanced technology to send a Terminator back to 1984 to kill John Connor’s mother, Sarah, before she ever gives birth to John, they seek to end the timeline of the man who could possibly put a permanent halt to Skynet’s plans.
Luckily, John has a counteractive plan of his own. He’ll send one of his own men back to stop the Terminator, and save Sarah so that she may live on to give birth to humanity’s only hope. Kyle Reese, a man that John took under his wing when he was only a boy, seems best suited for the job, not only for his courageousness, but for his innate loyalty to John and the resistance. (Little does Kyle know, but in the end, his life will play a much bigger role than that.) John tells Kyle that when he returns to 1984, the Sarah Connor he meets will be nothing like the one that he has spent hours recalling; the strong, independent Sarah that taught John how to fight back against the machines, and how defiance is one’s greatest weapon in the face of persecution. The Sarah Connor from 1984 is not privy to the path that lies ahead of her, and will appear more like a damsel in distress than the fierce warrior that John has spent so many nights describing. Kyle feels prepared for his journey, but when he arrives in 1984, it seems that Skynet has bested him once again, prompting the timeline to speed up after they send a Terminator to kill nine-year-old Sarah Connor, shoving her into a harsh, survivor-driven adulthood long before she should have known the realities its struggle.
Terminator Genisys mixes The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day together to create its new, updated timeline that ignores both the third and fourth installments in the series. Like its predecessor Terminator 2, this entry also pins Terminator against Terminator. However, it differentiates itself by managing to remain relatively bloodless throughout the entire 126 minute runtime. There are some pretty ludicrous fight scenes that entertain simply because they are so elaborate, but it soon becomes clear that most of this Terminator-on-Terminator action is for the benefit of the PG-13 rating; an incentive that didn’t hold back the R-rated source materials from which the film so heavily borrowed. This rating becomes glaringly more obvious during the Genisys time travel sequences (of which there are many), which feature time travelers who are forced to shed their clothes to ensure a safe passage, only to be captured by awkward camera angles that desperately try to hide any nudity that would send the film’s sin quota over the edge into R-rated territory. It’s strange to call a film that features a helicopter swerving through the chains of the Golden Gate Bridge “watered down”, but that’s how this addition to the Terminator franchise honestly comes across; a 2015 film that feels safer than its thirty-year-old originator.
Another thing that seems off about the new Terminator is the message it sends about Judgment Day. Despite the fact that this concept was originally created from a place of inevitability, Genisys seems to say that humans have doomed themselves, and that they are getting what they rightly deserve. James Cameron showed with concerned compassion how our need to progress often coincides with the need to conquer, and how our push to make machines intelligent and integrate them into our lives would eventually backfire if we weren’t careful. Genisys shames its viewers for being too obsessed with their cell phones. Although the message is oddly fleeting, it’s a rough one. It also plays into the rest of the film, which feels cold and distant, as the characters constantly talk about the fate of the future, and not the genocide that awaits the present; billions of innocents caught in the wake of Skynet’s destruction, and it seems that the only life that matters in this movie is John Connor’s. Despite solid performances from Emilia Clarke and Arnold Schwarzenegger, their moments of bonding are limited and reserved for build ups to action sequences. Perhaps if we had seen more encounters between the two, or between the Schwarzenegger and Jai Courtney their characters would elicit more sympathy, but the truth is, the feeling of being helpless against a massive, indestructible force like Skynet and knowing that you can’t do anything to save the countless lives around you is a state of mind that is simply absent from the latest entry in the series.
Aside from its mean-spirited, albeit brief message blaming humans for their own destruction, and its failure to add anything new to the three-decade-old franchise, the timeline just does not make sense, and the ending undoes all of the work that has been achieved throughout the film. But most importantly, Terminator Genisys lacks the heart and humor of the original Terminator films, which, ironically, is what made them so human. Every moment of dialogue is just a predecessor for the action. The dread and frustration of knowing the future and not being able to stop it, the “us against the world” mentality, and the desperation to save mankind — these emotions that saturated the original entries take a back seat to perfectly poised, attractive actors. This is a story that relies so heavily on appearances that its villain removes his physical flaws as soon as he reveals himself. It’s unfortunate that a movie about saving humanity goes through the blockbuster motions so much that it winds up feeling robotic, but that’s the case here. Terminator Genisys is one of the most action-packed, busiest films of the summer, and yet…nothing really happens.
It’s a big world out there, and that alone can make it seem pretty scary for some people. The uncertainty, the unknown, the unfamiliar – while there are those among us who crave exploration, they’re seemingly outnumbered by those who prefer to close their doors, their borders, and their hearts to whomever – and whatever – sits on the other side. The temptation will be strong to label The Outer Threat as a Temu Disclosure Day, but open your heart to it (and accept its budgetary limitations), and you’ll be rewarded with an engaging, hopeful genre tale.
Daniel (Mark O’Brien) is an astrophysicist living on a remote farm with Michelle (Constance Wu) and their two children (Callista Crowe, Isaac Smelcer-Zhang). He retreats every day to an underground bunker where he monitors and searches the universe for signs of extraterrestrial life, and one morning he finds just that – clear evidence of an advanced civilization that’s successfully found a way to harvest the power of their solar system’s sun. He’s understandably ecstatic and in a hurry to tell the world, but Michelle, a retired scientist who’s nearly given up on humanity as a whole and chooses to focus solely on her family, is adamant that he keep quiet.
He goes against her wishes, obviously, and sends an email filled with data attachments to his boss at NORAD. The result is almost immediate as electrical power, internet connections, and cell service all shut off in and around their small nearby town. Soon small drones are buzzing their farm and peeping in their windows, MQ-9 Reapers are bombing their bunker, and unmarked cars are following their every move.
Writer/director William Woods makes his directorial debut with The Outer Threat, and while his ambitions dwarf his resources, the end result is a compelling family adventure that argues for opening our metaphorical doors to the unknown. A strong cast, that also includes a supporting turn from the always welcome William Fichtner, helps carry the downtime between suspense sequences and minor set pieces. It’s an undeniably small film, but its ideas and conversations are exponentially bigger.
Michelle’s beef with humankind stems from both the personal and the general state of the world at large. Her father (Oscar Hsu) is also a scientist, and like Daniel, he risked valuing his work over his family to the point that Michelle no longer speaks with him. Her bigger issue is knowing that our species is a poor steward of both this planet and each other, and when Daniel accuses her of having little faith in humanity, she replies only “not without reason.”
One of The Outer Threat’s most interesting sequences will feel like a disjointed detour to some, but it actually encapsulates one of the film’s central themes in one simple exchange. The family is on the road and heading to Michelle’s father’s place – she’s not thrilled, but his past work with the government might come in handy – when they decide to stop for food. They reach a tiny town that looks deceptively abandoned and are welcomed into a diner by the owner, Sam (Fichtner), and his young granddaughter.
He’s initially cautious and explains that soldiers had passed through, telling everyone to remain indoors, but he proceeds to feed the family in need while explaining that he’s hoping to scrounge up some fuel to reconnect with the rest of his family. Sam also shares with Michelle that he hesitated to open his door to them simply because they were different. He was fearful, and now he’s ashamed and worried that maybe he’s not the man he thought he was. “What really scares me,” he adds, “was the thought that maybe, just maybe, we’re all rotten.”
She listens. She leaves. And she never tells him about the numerous extra canisters of gas they have in the back of their pickup truck.
It’s a striking character beat as our protagonist, even halfway through the film, remains steadfast in her disconnect from others. She’s far from the only one in need of change, though, as it was Daniel’s hubris and ego that led to this situation in the first place. “Our kids should be home safe,” she tells him at one point, “but you just had to let the world know how smart you are.” Woods and his cast mine drama from this brilliant but misaligned couple, and both Wu and O’Brien are convincing in their motivations and emotions.
Somewhat less convincing are the film’s occasional swings at big visual effects. Drones and weather balloons in the sky are passable, but explosions, vast encampments, and more land with an iffy digital thud. None of them are deal breakers, though, both because they’re used sparingly and because the characters and their dilemma take center stage.
Woods, whose best and brightest accomplishment remains serving as a producer on the criminally underseen 2020 film, The Kid Detective, arguably bites off a bit more than he can chew with The Outer Threat. His big ideas on both story and humankind are inevitably under-explored in a film of this size, and you’ll be left wishing he had a bigger budget behind him. Audiences are bound to expect something more from the film’s third act, especially, so set your expectations accordingly going in that this is more a film about human connection and ideals than it is a tale of alien invasion.
There are moments here of genuine suspense and thrills, but the film’s power rests in those human beats. From Sam revealing he was concealing a gun while making them pancakes, to Michelle’s father pushing aside huge news of world-altering significance so he can instead spend time with grandchildren he’s only just met, to feuding kids combining their skills for an act of bravery, this is a movie about people who can be so much more than we believe ourselves capable of being.
“For thousands of years human beings have been the dominant species on this planet,” says a character at a certain point, “but that’s no longer the case.” The trailer teases this line, and while you can’t fault the marketing department, it might feel like a bit of a bait and switch by the time the end credits roll. You can choose to be underwhelmed, but here’s hoping you open the door to the film’s hopefulness instead.
The Outer Threat is now available on VOD and Digital.
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