Many years ago, when I was not yet in high school, I saw Terminator 2: the judgment day on TV. I didn’t know who James Cameron was but had
heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Didn’t know how to pronounce correctly though.)
He and Tom Cruise being the only Hollywood stars, me or my friends knew of till
then. Then the movie happened! That was the best action movie I had seen till
then. Nearly fifteen years later, it is still one of my favourites.
Terminator Genisys
is not a bad movie. But as with any franchise movie, it bears the pressure of
being compared to its predecessors. Compared to the ones after Judgment day, Genisys fares pretty well.
But quite not enough. The best thing is that Arnie is back. As he puts it – old
but not obsolete. Better machines/models with upgraded, refined powers have
come. But no matter what, how many beatings he take, he will save the day! Writers
have taken a quantum leap of logic to explain his aged look, relating it to his
‘living tissue over metal endoskeleton’ bearing the brunt of time! I wonder how
the ‘living tissue’ is being fed. Terminator is the perfect role for Armies’
acting skills. He plays a machine. So absolutely no need to emote!
Judgment day was
based on a complex premise. Machines vs man in the future, time travel etc etc.
But basically it remains a very very simple plot. A good guy protects a weaker
(read humans) kid and his mother, from a much powerful bad guy. The biggest
problem with Genisys is that it’s
anything but simple. And what is even worse is that there is nothing much new
about the villains, provided no major change is possible for Armies’ character.
So there is time travel, shape shifting terminators, altered time lines,
cryptic warnings, nano machine hybrids, all thrown in to make it more
complicated and a bit confusing. CGI is great. But then nowadays every other
big budget action movie has great CGI.
Terminator is protecting Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and
she calls him ‘Pops’! Terminator in turn goes Chappie and draws pictures of them together and keeps photos and
all. Desperate attempts to tug that emotional cord with the audience. Emilia is
great but it’s hard not to see her as the Khaleesi
of The Game of Thrones and we
kind of expect a dragon to pop in when she gets into a situation, and feel that
would have been much more fun!
Genisys is fast
paced, action packed with reasonably good writing. A good entertainer. But its
place in my heart would only be till the next big action movie hit the screens.
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