Terminator: Genisys (2015), PG-13, ★1/2

Arnold's back. But, is the franchise back?

Sci-fi and time travel. What a combination to propel either a film, phenomenon or franchise to gear that can hook you as to figuring out and solving the puzzle. The question is how soon can you figure out the puzzle using clues such as foreshadowing, sci-fi elements, hidden dialogue and a timespan to classify it as a thrill ride but a nice challenge. I mean, Inception and the Back to the Future trilogy was a fun ride to solve their situation in a dream which I figured as a maze and also solve their situation in a fun and humorous timeline. But, when you have to solve a situation that is not fun and is confusing and you do not even care and you try to have fun, we have Terminator: Genisys.

From the get-go, I have a tough time typing this review when I'm trying to figure out what is going on in the timeline. So, you have to bear with me, please.

In 1997, Skynet took over and unleashed Judgment Day upon the world as we witness explosions destroying its planet and killing millions of people...again. In 2029, John Connor (Jason Clarke) and Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) fight side by side to infiltrate their last Skynet base to their secret weapon - a time machine that sent the Terminator to kill John's mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). The other Terminators scan the base and see it is non-functional. There is a surprise attack and thinking they have won, the fighters go down to the storage facility to find the time machine and many offer to go back into the past and protect Sarah from harm. However, Kyle offers and volunteers to go into the time machine and is sent back into the past to protect Sarah.

Meanwhile, the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is also sent to the past and he does what he does in the first three movies. He tries to take some punk's clothes away. But, the twist is that an aged T-800 (Schwarzenegger) fights with the other T-800 but Sarah, from a distance, kills it.

Kyle arrives in 1984 naked and he takes the pants off a homeless man as a cop (Byung-hun Lee). But, the man is also a Terminator, the T-1000, and he chases Reese and Reese gets cuffed by those actual cops but the T-1000 kill the older cop. However, a truck comes out of nowhere and hit the T-1000 and Sarah opens the door and comments to Kyle to "come with her if he wants to leave". Sarah knows everything with Kyle and what he is sent here to do. Well, they're sort of ripping off the first Terminator movie which was directed by James Cameron.

Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor.

*facepalm* Yikes, 40 minutes into the film I was thinking to myself that even though I was lost in its "plot", I wanted to be entertained by the stupidity of its plot and action sequences. But, the storyline seemed too muddled for its good that our intelligence and the audience's intelligence would be insulted that we would question that besides James Cameron's sequel why are there sequels in its series. This is technically not a sequel per se as this movie sort of tries to fix the first movie and does an awful job of trying to alter the movie and its storyline. They go back to 2017 where Genisys is set to be live for to start Judgment Day. Their mission is to prevent it. When the T-800 comments about the time jump to 2017, I thought it was so made up on the spot that it did not do enough to propel the story.

There are two performances that were good. Arnold Schwarzenegger as the main role as the Terminator. I mean, he's great and he's funny but he's sort of not the main character in the movie. And, in a supporting performance, I thought J.K. Simmons was fascinating as the person who had witnessed that time-traveling people are real. Emilia Clarke is a good actress but tries too hard to become Linda Hamilton portraying Sarah Connor. I felt she lacked so much empathy and determination that she just sleep-walks with a gun and in peril throughout the whole movie. I don't get Jai Courtney to be honest. He gives another uncharismatic and joyless performance as Kyle Reese, who was greatly portrayed by Michael Biehn, who does not get enough credit. Also, Jason Clarke does not do enough justice to the John Connor role. And, Byung-Hung Lee gave too much a deadpan performance that even though he was evil, it is too much of a pale comparison to Robert Patrick's iconic villainous role.

The visual effects stand out and the action sequences are fun but there is not much stake at hand because we know how the first two movies' outcomes concluded. And, the excitement is down two notches as in my opinion, the first two had much better and scarier action. It wants to be another "throwback" to the glory times of hard-core action sci-fi but this fifth Terminator movie does not cut it thanks to the convoluted storytelling and nonsensical twists and ending that is about as ludicrous as it can get. I was sort of entertained by T3, bored by Salvation, and appalled by this latest entry to the franchise.

*1/2