Time to terminate

Johnson Thomas

A revolutionary ethereal system called Genisys is all set to go online on a specific day in 2017. And the Guardian, Sarah and Kyle have to destroy it to allow for their own existence. Director Alan Taylor tries to up the ante, deploying facsimile tension through a countdown clock but the haphazard cutting and the jumpy timelines make it a difficult task to achieve.

The film tries to be a parable of sorts, warning of the dangers of overdependence on digital gadgets while trying to camouflage its very obvious tryst with product placement. And there are quite a few brands showing up at regular intervals- Mercedes Benz, Samsung, Beats etc. The 3D gloss aims to relive moments from the past showing Arnold Shwarzenegger in all his muscular glory in a role that made him a superstar some 30 years ago. At 70 in real life, Arnold is shown doing much the same he did way back and it’s by no means fluent or impressive. Taylor recreates some of the scenes from James Cameron’s original – Shwarzenegger arriving nude at the Griffith Observatory and then getting into a Terminator-on-Terminator confrontation with the younger issue fighting the older one. It’s a gimmicky scene that doesn’t allow for any connect.

The script by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier has intersecting time-travel sections, which complicate matters - leaning towards incoherence. And at the end, a single line uttered by a character nullifies everything that came before it. So the movie’s scientific logic doesn’t stand close scrutiny here and the narration and effects just don’t allow for any immersive experience either. The entire visual schema fails to raise the bar on effects. This is standard issue stuff and is unlikely to hold anyone in thrall.