Ter­mi­na­tor Genisys

Cast your minds back to the sum­mer of ​’91 and allow us set the scene for one of the most shock­ing crimes of movie mar­ket­ing ever com­mit­ted. The best part of a decade on from James Cameron’s sem­i­nal cyber­net­ic sci-fi, audi­ences were eager­ly gear­ing up to go anoth­er round with the T‑800. Unbe­knownst to the moviego­ing pub­lic, how­ev­er, Cameron had an earth-shat­ter­ing twist up his sleeve: Arnie was now the good guy.

Through­out the pro­duc­tion of Ter­mi­na­tor 2: Judg­ment Day Cameron man­aged to keep this cru­cial plot detail a secret, antic­i­pat­ing fans’ jaws col­lec­tive­ly hit­ting the the­atre floor when, a full 38 min­utes into the film, he would drop arguably the most auda­cious bait and switch in movie his­to­ry. But this sur­prise wasn’t revealed as Cameron had intend­ed, because in the months lead­ing up to the film’s release TriS­tar Pic­tures made sure that every­one knew what to expect.

Watch­ing the the­atri­cal trail­er back, it’s easy to see why the US dis­trib­u­tor went against the director’s wish­es – they had an expen­sive, shiny new bad­die to show off, and reac­quaint­ing audi­ences with an Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger who by 1991 had already found his soft­er side in Kinder­garten Cop and Twins was pre­sum­ably deemed a smart move. That doesn’t change the fact that the entire cam­paign was built around the moth­er of all spoil­ers, but hind­sight affords us the ben­e­fit of being able to recog­nise the log­ic behind it. Still, imag­ine the impact T2’s heel turn would have on an unsus­pect­ing audi­ence today, in an age where a char­ac­ter chip­ping a nail on a show like Game of Thrones is enough to send Twit­ter into a tail­spin. Nev­er mind break­ing the inter­net, a bomb­shell on that scale would sure­ly change the face of mass enter­tain­ment as we know it.

But enough of the his­to­ry les­son. There’s a point to all this retroac­tive protest­ing, one that should by now be clear to any­one who’s famil­iar with the pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als for Ter­mi­na­tor Genisys. (If you’re not, don’t wor­ry, we’re not about to ruin any­thing for you.) In direc­tor Alan Taylor’s reboot-cum-pre­quel-cum-bloat­ed exer­cise in block­buster auto­can­ni­bal­ism, the series’ famous­ly oblique time­line is mud­died fur­ther still when friend­ly T‑800 con­fronts not-so-friend­ly T‑800 at the Grif­fith Obser­va­to­ry in Los Ange­les cir­ca 1984. He’s aid­ed by a young Sarah Con­nor (Emil­ia Clarke) already in full trig­ger-hap­py war­rior mode, who the film’s alter­nate real­i­ty struc­ture dic­tates must refer to the Ter­mi­na­tor as ​‘Pops’. Because time travel.

Yet the film’s cen­tral nar­ra­tive thread – which seeks to invert the core fam­i­ly dynam­ic estab­lished in the first two films – hinges on the unex­pect­ed mod­i­fi­ca­tion of one of its chief pro­tag­o­nists. As with T2, this piv­otal role rever­sal has been repeat­ed­ly leaked via numer­ous teasers and fea­turettes, a game plan which even the film’s direc­tor has pub­licly crit­i­cised. The fun­da­men­tal dif­fer­ence is that T2 went on to do gang­busters, becom­ing the high­est gross­ing film of that year and there­by vin­di­cat­ing the film’s bare-all mar­ket­ing ploy. How his­to­ry favours the pro­mo­tion of Ter­mi­na­tor Genisys will ulti­mate­ly depend on the film’s box office per­for­mance. But we’re will­ing to stick our neck out and pre­dict that the trick isn’t about to be repeated.

Where Cameron’s orig­i­nal is at its most exhil­a­rat­ing when human flesh and robot hard­ware clash, T2 shows us that it’s pos­si­ble for man and machine to coex­ist (see the scene where Edward Furlong’s John Con­nor teach­es the T‑800 ​’90s street slang terms like ​“no prob­le­mo” and ​“eat me”). It’s these lighter, more ten­der moments that ele­vate T2 above oth­er mod­ern action movies, Cameron shrewd­ly switch­ing the empha­sis to explore an uncon­ven­tion­al father-son rela­tion­ship. This time around, it’s Skynet that is giv­en a human face as Tay­lor lit­er­al­ly rearranges the Ter­mi­na­tor chronol­o­gy while recon­struct­ing var­i­ous famil­iar scenes from a dif­fer­ent (but not nec­es­sar­i­ly new) perspective.

The result is a film which at any giv­en point doesn’t appear to know what direc­tion it’s fac­ing, keep­ing the audi­ence trapped in an end­less feed­back loop of grind­ing expo­si­tion­al banal­i­ty. Which is iron­ic for a film about a sen­tient AI sys­tem that has taught itself how to out­ma­noeu­vre its intel­lec­tu­al­ly infe­ri­or mak­er. The tedious plot­ting and flat dia­logue would be at least part­ly admis­si­ble if the action was up to par, but any film that fea­tures a som­er­sault­ing school bus as its cen­tre­piece stunt – a feat lift­ed straight from Christo­pher Nolan’s The Dark Knight – is prac­ti­cal­ly beg­ging to be called out for its lack of ambi­tion and originality.

Where the film falls down hard­est is in the recast­ing of the franchise’s key play­ers. Jai Court­ney is instant­ly for­get­table as buff Kyle Reese, a man who looks like he’d be eas­i­ly con­fused by the sight of his own reflec­tion and yet is some­how able to wrap his head around expo­nen­tial algo­rithms, nexus points and quan­tum warps. Genisys also sees the return of the T‑1000, played by South Kore­an actor Byung-hun Lee. Although again, it’s not exact­ly an upgrade. Else­where Emil­ia Clarke and Jason Clarke raise the sus­pi­cion they were cast as the Con­nors sole­ly on the basis that they share the same last name, so hor­ri­bly suit­ed are they to their respec­tive roles.

And then there’s Arnie – same mod­el, same mis­sion, only now large­ly rel­e­gat­ed to the side­lines, called upon when­ev­er his robot­ic monot­o­ne is required to explain a plot detail or crap out a catch­phrase. Despite per­sis­tent­ly reas­sur­ing us that the T‑800 is old but not obso­lete (we’re informed that the liv­ing human tis­sue cov­er­ing its hyper­al­loy endoskele­ton has degen­er­at­ed – because every post-come­back Arnie film is appar­ent­ly oblig­ed to make ref­er­ence to his age), Schwarzeneg­ger is a shad­ow of his for­mer self here, cut­ting a strange­ly detached fig­ure through­out the film’s two-hour run­time. Hav­ing wit­nessed Judge­ment Day, sur­vived the Rise of the Machines and wise­ly side­stepped Sal­va­tion with us, Schwarzenegger’s most endur­ing char­ac­ter is now oxi­dis­ing rapid­ly before our eyes. An action icon in retrograde.

Inter­est­ing­ly, there are sev­er­al points of com­par­i­son to be made between Genisys and Col­in Trevorrow’s Juras­sic World, anoth­er glossy retread that’s per­fect­ly con­tent trad­ing off of the lega­cy of its pre­de­ces­sors. These films essen­tial­ly serve to remind audi­ences how far Hol­ly­wood has come over the last 20 or so years with regards to both com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed and in-cam­era visu­al effects, but in that respect nei­ther can real­ly be called an improve­ment on the orig­i­nals. They may be big­ger, loud­er, tooth­ier, yet despite the obvi­ous tech­no­log­i­cal advances the action sequences are less excit­ing than before. As long as block­busters of this ilk keep striv­ing to up the stakes by fill­ing the frame to burst­ing with elab­o­rate pyrotech­nics, the sto­ry­telling will con­tin­ue to suffer.

The sim­i­lar­i­ties don’t end there. Juras­sic World and Ter­mi­na­tor Genisys each pit human­i­ty against a supreme destruc­tive force of its own mak­ing (Genisys even has its own Indomi­nus Rex, albeit a less impres­sive spec­i­men whose pow­ers are some­what vague­ly defined), but the fal­la­cious faux-eco­log­i­cal mes­sage they tout is that the world was ever ours to take back in the first place. More­over, just as Juras­sic World weighs itself down with the same alle­gor­i­cal anchor line as Steven Spielberg’s 1993 clas­sic, so Genisys rais­es the same eth­i­cal con­cerns as Cameron’s ear­li­er films – name­ly, soci­ety is at risk of becom­ing enslaved by con­sumer capitalism.

And that’s fine. After all, that very real fear has only cal­ci­fied in the inter­ven­ing decades, and to be hon­est we weren’t real­ly expect­ing Genisys to bring any­thing new to the table as a social com­men­tary. The prob­lem is that Genisys is so earnest in its mis­placed belief that what it has to say is not only pro­found but vital, espous­ing the cause of those who oppose today’s always-on cul­ture by fir­ing off sev­er­al warn­ing shots about the pro­lif­er­a­tion of social media. Just shut up and get back to blow­ing shit up, already! Yeesh.

Above all, Genisys is a stag­ger­ing­ly dull film. You could mount a case for its defence based on this being the first chap­ter of a pro­posed new tril­o­gy, and con­se­quent­ly it is required to do a lot of heavy lift­ing in order to bring every­one up to speed. But that doesn’t par­don Tay­lor from engi­neer­ing such a joy­less spec­ta­cle. If this is a sign of things to come for the Ter­mi­na­tor fran­chise, the nuclear apoc­a­lypse can’t come soon enough.