Terminator: Genisys (Blu-ray + DVD + UltraViolet)

Blu-Ray Reviews | Nov 12th, 2015

Terminator: Genisys Blu-Ray Review

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke, J. K. Simmons, Matt Smith
Written By: Laeta Kalogridis, Patrick Lussier
Directed By: Alan Taylor
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Buy On Amazon.com

Terminator: Genisys is a movie I wanted to like but I just couldn’t. It’s just bad all over from the recycled story, awful dialogue & acting, mediocre special effects but hey, it’s got Arnold in it!

The movie starts out in the future and we see the resistance taking on Skynet, led by John Connor (Jason Clarke)….Just like every Terminator movie. His good friend Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is by his side and eventually they come to a time travelling device. John sends Kyle Reese back to 1984 to protect his mother Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke). When he gets there, he’s the one that needs protecting since Sarah is more than capable, since she has her “Guardian” (Arnold Schwarzenegger) with her. Events have changed and altered past & future timelines that it will confuse viewers so much that even reading a Wikipedia page afterwards will leave you scratching your head.

I grew up with the Terminator series so I’ve been a fan of the franchise for awhile. I still consider Judgement Day to be one of the best action movies ever. But of course James Cameron was at the helm and knew what he was doing. Alan Taylor was a good director for Game of Thrones and other things but this was a mess. I don’t know what’s happening with the last few movies but they have been pretty crappy. This Terminator is probably the worst one in many ways. Lots of retreads, recycled plotlines, an overall confusing and awful story, bad usage of CGI in spots, and awful acting. Within the first 5 minutes of this, I could tell this movie was going to be garbage. The biggest thing that made me hate the movie was the fact the trailer SPOILED all the twists before you even got to the theater! Whoever thought to include [one of the characters] as the villain in the trailer is pretty fucking stupid.

Jai Courtney turned Kyle Reese into a moron who can’t do anything useful and Emilia Clarke needs to stick with speaking Dothraki because her acting was just terrible. Every line she spoke made me cringe (her calling Arnold “Pops”) and want to turn the movie off. I like Emilia but she was just miscast in this. Jason Clarke wasn’t exactly that special either. Arnold is Arnold and you either love him or hate him at this point. Having Arnold back in the movie certainly helped but not by much. He had more charisma than all of the other actors combined, and he was playing a robot too!

Having Terminator: Genisys be only PG-13 certainly didn’t help them as well. The early movies had blood, nudity, graphic action and this one didn’t. Game of Thrones is ten times more bloody. This is a good example of why cable TV series are better than most movies now because they aren’t afraid of MPAA’s rating system. James Cameron’s movies had a lot of practical special effects and used CGI in the right way. Terminator 2: Judgment Day was a pioneer in that regard. With Terminator: Genisys, seeing cartoon buses flip over, and things blow up just isn’t the same as the real thing. Shoddy special effects is just one factor on why this wasn’t a good movie.

The special features on the Blu-Ray focus on cast, the characters, the special effects and some behind the scenes footage of the making of the movie. I just glanced over them so couldn’t really tell you much about them. The extras is about an hour long though.

Terminator: Genisys is the worst in the Terminator franchise. Sarah Connor Chronicles is even better than this. I wish they would have created something new instead of trying to retread on old storylines. I wish they got different actors to play the parts and I wish they didn’t make one of the characters a villain when he shouldn’t have been one. Maybe if they decide to make another movie down the road, it won’t be a pile of shit like Terminator: Genisys.

Features

Family Dynamics: Casting the film’s iconic characters
Infiltration and Termination: Shooting on location
Upgrades: VFX of “”Terminator Genisys””

Audio
French Dolby Digital 5.1
Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Digital 7.1

Video
Widescreen 1.78:1 Color

Bottom Line: Well, at least we still have Terminator 1 and 2.
Running Time: 126 mins
Rating: PG-13
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating:

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