--John Connor, Terminator: Genysis
Not everything in Terminator: Genysis is awful. The opening scenes set in the post-Judgment Day future actually have great effects for once, J. K. Simmons is amazing in his comedic (and dramatic) delivery, the acid trap is a great way to defeat a terminator, and the revisiting of key scenes from the original Terminator with time travel-related changes are a way to infuse nostalgia with novelty. The faults of Genysis, though it would have certainly benefitted from a darker atmosphere and more violent action sequences, are also not there because of its PG-13 rating. Acting from certain main characters that is extremely mediocre is one of the deficiencies that holds it back. Indeed, it is the primary one. Another weakness, depending on the execution, is that little is done to change the basic plot structure of the events, something Terminator has struggled with since the excellent Judgment Day served as a sequel to the first entry.
Production Values
The effects are at least sufficient to revisit machine designs from across the other films, including the classic terminator models without artificial skin and the liquid metal design introduced in the second movie. There is not any enormous flaw in the general quality of the special effects. Where there is a lack of effort or quality is some of the acting. Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney are not at their best here, but Clarke is more often the better performer of the two in her scenes where she shows greater intensity than the often subdued performance of Courtney. Jai Courtney is a mostly bland Kyle Reese just middling enough to not drag the film to absolutely abysmal levels, though he certainly does not help it reach incredible heights either. The returning Arnold Schwarzenegger shows flashes of what would be a very humorous but still dramatic role in Dark Fate, yet is also not enough even at his most robotic or sarcastic to elevate Genysis. The best performances are actually for secondary characters. One of them only shows up for maybe three or four brief scenes at most: Dayo Okeniyi as the son of corporate inventor Miles Dyson from Terminator 2 is very well cast and does great with extremely limited screentime. J. K. Simmons, who gets more scenes than Okeniyi, is incredible, as usual, giving some of the most fittingly comedic lines of the entire film while his character has a crucial role in the plot.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
John Connor has almost led the human resistance against Skynet to victory over the oppressive AI, but on the eve of defeat, Skynet uses a time travel device to send a terminator back in time to kill Sarah Connor, as is seen in 1984 in the original film. John's close friend Kyle Reese volunteers to be sent back to save her. However, Sarah is not oblivious to terminator activity and time travel as he expected. She has prepared for his arrival. Kyle begins experiencing memories from what seems like another life, another version of himself, and these memories tell him that "Genysis is Skynet." After time traveling again, this time with Sarah, he sees how Genysis is poised to dominate humanity in a different guise.
Intellectual Content
Genysis features the usual Terminator trappings of artificial intelligence, time and sequential causality, and the potential for people in power to pioneer the technology that destroys them. In some moments, it does apply its concepts like a misanthropic AI in different ways, like having Skynet's Judgment Day come about from a cloud software that connects an enormous amount of human technology rather than from the military like in Terminator 3. Very early on, before Genysis has been introduced as a reclothed Skynet, Kyle Reese asks John Connor how he can predict the future so well. John responds, "No one can see the future, Reese." Where Genysis goes with John is not all that related to this early line, but the movie does very, very lightly touch upon John's role as a prophet in a science fiction context, receiving his information about the future not from God or an angel, but from his mother's words before Skynet razed the planet. This reboot just does almost nothing with any of these promising ideas other than very quickly utilize them to move the story ahead.
Conclusion
Better acting from some key cast members would have worked wonders for Genysis. It did make Terminator lore much more convoluted, and it did forgo the R rating yet again as did Salvation, but these are things that can be done well. They are thus not the sole reason or sometimes a reason at all for a film falling short of whatever potential its premise and execution had. A Terminator movie set in the modern day (at the time of its release) with a different incarnation of Skynet with its own name is not a bad direction to take the franchise--Dark Fate does these same things and is a very good film in its own right. What both Genysis and Dark Fate fail to do even with their somewhat unique narratives is take the series in a direction that does not retread the general elements of almost every movie in the franchise. Salvation at least showed the Skynet-dominated future Earth and thus something different that did not betray the series (execution was its downfall). Genysis would have been better either way if only Jai Courtney gave a superior performance, and this would also be true if Emilia Clarke did the same.
Content:
1. Violence: In PG-13 form, the physical fights of Terminator as a franchise are not graphic in any way even as machines pummel each other.
2. Profanity: "Fuck" and "shit" are used, the former only once.
3. Nudity: A naked man is seen briefly from behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment