Terminator Salvation & Genisys

[Digital Drift 2015]

The Terminator series reboots again (kind of), delivering a dark, desaturated, dusty, miserable, angry, shouty future war of dirty humans vs Deceptions! Christian Bale stars as John Connor, bringing with him all the furious, savage, grumpy intensity he is capable of. Not satisfied with one gravely, shaven-headed Johnny Template this movie brings us two with Sam Worthington playing Marcus Wright, the mysterious wanderer with a secret identity… unless you’ve seen the trailer, in which case it’s a pre-established identity we spend an ice age waiting for everyone in the movie to catch up with. That should sound familiar by now if you’re a Terminator fan.

Genisys by contrast is not quite as bad as T3 and Salvation, in fact there were one or two bits I rather liked. It’s more reverent than the third movie, more playful and less boring than the fourth. The writers clearly seem to be able to understand time travel a smidgen more than the other guys. But it's still bad, and almost certainly ensured that Dark Fate was criminally ignored. The promise of Schwarzenegger's return had already been fulfilled, poorly, and it seems like even Linda Hamilton wasn't enough to draw the crowds. That means this fifth movie might have been the magic bullet that finally killed The Terminator.