Terminator Genisys review: a tragic thing to do to an old friend

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Oh the excitement as the Amazon package containing another 3D blu-ray movie drops through the door. This week it's the fifth in the much-loved Terminator franchise, Terminator Genisys which I've had on order for weeks and which was at long last released on November 2nd.

But yikes ...

After a promising start with Arnie doing a decent job reprising his original role as a craggily Johnny Cashesque aging Terminator, the movie ultimately proves itself a truly godawful stinker.

There's no sense that smug well-fed Jai Courtney as the tragic Kyle Reese is a top trooper who has endured a lifetime of apocalyptic nightmare under the tyranny of Cyberdyne and their Skynet artificial intelligence system. Instead, he looks like a jock goon straight out of a National Lampoons movie, dishonouring the memory of Michael Biehn, who wrung our hearts in the original.

It took me a while to realise that the one-note brat playing Sarah Connor is Emilia Clarke, Danaeris from Game of Thrones. I may have to wait and forget her performance in Genisys before I resume watching GOT season 4 but I fear my viewing may be irreparably harmed by her feisty feistiness. I may even take to referring to her as Her Feistiness. In case you hadn't guessed, I HATE feisty. Too cutesy, and insufficiently endowed with guts to be as truly challenging as demi-goddess Linda Hamilton (all hail).

What happened to Clarke's GOT co-star, Lena Headey, who made such a magnificent Sarah in the TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles? Did she take one look at the script and scarper?

Both Courtney and Clarke lack sensitivity and depth, and fail to recreate the mythical grandeur of the original movie, not helped by witless lumpen dialogue that a smart 11-year old would find embarrassing.

It says a lot when, aside from Arnie, the best acting comes from the T-800 (Brett Azar with Arnie's CGI'd face) and the T-1000 (Lee Byung-hun doing a great Robert Patrick). Not to mention JK Simmons spanning the years as Detective O'Brien.

The writers should be made to sweep streets for turning out this time-travel mess in which five dates figure: 1984, 1997, 2014, 2017 and 2029, plus the year when Sarah Connor was nine years old and got herself a pet "Pops" — an Ah-nuld Terminator. Got it?

The film opens with the messianic leader of the Resistance, John Connor (played by the decidedly UN-messianic Jason Clarke, meh!), sending his best buddy Kyle back in time from their offensive in 2029 to 1984 to protect his mum. So far, so like the original. However, in this timeline, it's all different and in the new 1984, Sarah is already hardass and familiar with the plot (aren't we all, dear) and now has that (rather emasculated) pet T-800 in tow. The other thing that is different is that Sarah and her cyborg minder have knocked up a little time machine. In 1984. Yeah, right. Never mind protecting Sarah, protect the crock of a plot at all costs.

Anyhow, I digress. The subsequent John Connor twist is severely mishandled, throwing away this key character. And the plot holes ... So if John Connor is transformed into a nanocyte prototype Terminator-3000 and goes back to 2014 in order to develop Genisys, Skynet's global operating system, in time for its deployment in 2017, and also to kill his parents, how can he be born and go back to 2014 in order to ... This conundrum is crudely plugged by nicking directly from the charmingly effective method in the original to the effect that someone says, "a person could go mad working this out". It's meant to work under cover of a witty callback to the first movie but just ends up calling attention to its own ineptitude.

There's not enough emotional pacing to transmit the horror of the situation in which JC and the family finds itself and results in just another over-complicated blah sci-fi movie when I wanted epic SF that explores big themes. In the wake of so much brilliant writing emerging from America, from Buffy to Breaking Bad, this is unforgivable.

I was optimistic about this movie, having seen what a glorious job the makers of the new Mad Max, Fury Road, did with the franchise. Terminator Genisys may have done well at the box office but I wonder how many viewers were pleased with the experience.

The brief presence of Matt Smith as the evuhl T-5000 who turns John Connor into a machine indicates intentions to make another sequel. It'll be back.

Hollywood loses balls, actors find theirs: Golden Globes cancelled

Is that poor wee bairn, solidarity, raising its orphan head over in the City of Angels? Astoundingly, actors are refusing to cross the striking writers' picket lines, meaning no designer frocks on loan, no goody bags and no awards ceremony as this year's Golden Globes is cancelled.

Instead, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation that owns the Golden Globes Awards, will be announcing the winners at a Beverley Hilton press conference on Sunday when the event was scheduled to take place.

Being so used to posties and tube workers who defend their rights and their service against rapacious carpet-bagging privatisers being trashed in the media here in the UK, it quite brings a tear to my eye to see some fairly pampered talent sacrificing their spot in the limelight in support of the hard-working writers who think all this stuff up in the first place.

It's amazing that four lousy cents on a DVD is all it would take to make the writers happy and end the strike. But the studios seem intent on breaking the Writers Guild of America. Still, it could be worse. They could have a government bringing in draconian anti-strike legislation like Labour is attempting to do here. I still remember the slogan: only a slave may not withdraw their labour. And here's Labour demanding we call them "massa".

Call me an old romantic but I'll always be the starlet who slept with the writer - good luck guys.

Support is coming from all over as self-interest is superceded by principles. Joss Whedon, who gave the world Buffy The Vampire Slayer, is one of our generation's finest writers whose influence is felt in Britain from the Dr Who stable to Eastenders. He has many projects in the pipeline and yet he's encouraging his legion of fans to support the strike and take pizza and chocolate to the picket lines. Comfort as well as nutrients - now that's what I call a protest!

"None of the writers – or anyone – I’ve spoken to have ever heard of fans organizing and supporting a strike the way you guys have. Supporting our right not to entertain you. Seriously, that’s rare."

Jay Leno got off to a good start but lost his nerve and wrote himself a set for his TV chat show. What happened to spontaneity and improvisational skills? I hope he pickets himself.

George Clooney denies masterminding the latest militancy, but scores a labour movement hat-trick by being a member of the actors', writers' and directors' unions. Wadda guy. Shame about his taking the Nestle shilling.

It's hard to think of the equivalent happening here.

Anyone planning on hunkering down and watching their screen heroes' old exploits on DVD for the duration of what promises to be a long action, be warned if you are investing in the latest hardware. Make sure you buy Sony Blu-ray technology as the rival Toshiba HD-DVD now goes the way of Betamax with Paramount's decision to back Blu-ray.

Thankfully, this household is always a good ten years behind the current technology - I will miss the cathode ray tube - so we are never caught out buying the Wrong Stuff. I'm still hanging onto my favourite videos 'cause I don't entirely trust those shiny little discs. Assuming we survive the dystopian downturn headed our way, we'll probably be ready for our first plasma screen the day civilisation finally crumbles to dust. But at least there'll be writers to write about it.

Hollywood loses balls, actors find theirs: Golden Globes cancelled

Is that poor wee bairn, solidarity, raising its orphan head over in the City of Angels? Astoundingly, actors are refusing to cross the striking writers' picket lines, meaning no designer frocks on loan, no goody bags and no awards ceremony as this year's Golden Globes is cancelled.

Instead, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation that owns the Golden Globes Awards, will be announcing the winners at a Beverley Hilton press conference on Sunday when the event was scheduled to take place.

Being so used to posties and tube workers who defend their rights and their service against rapacious carpet-bagging privatisers being trashed in the media here in the UK, it quite brings a tear to my eye to see some fairly pampered talent sacrificing their spot in the limelight in support of the hard-working writers who think all this stuff up in the first place.

It's amazing that four lousy cents on a DVD is all it would take to make the writers happy and end the strike. But the studios seem intent on breaking the Writers Guild of America. Still, it could be worse. They could have a government bringing in draconian anti-strike legislation like Labour is attempting to do here. I still remember the slogan: only a slave may not withdraw their labour. And here's Labour demanding we call them "massa".

Call me an old romantic but I'll always be the starlet who slept with the writer - good luck guys.

Support is coming from all over as self-interest is superceded by principles. Joss Whedon, who gave the world Buffy The Vampire Slayer, is one of our generation's finest writers whose influence is felt in Britain from the Dr Who stable to Eastenders. He has many projects in the pipeline and yet he's encouraging his legion of fans to support the strike and take pizza and chocolate to the picket lines. Comfort as well as nutrients - now that's what I call a protest!

"None of the writers – or anyone – I’ve spoken to have ever heard of fans organizing and supporting a strike the way you guys have. Supporting our right not to entertain you. Seriously, that’s rare."

Jay Leno got off to a good start but lost his nerve and wrote himself a set for his TV chat show. What happened to spontaneity and improvisational skills? I hope he pickets himself.

George Clooney denies masterminding the latest militancy, but scores a labour movement hat-trick by being a member of the actors', writers' and directors' unions. Wadda guy. Shame about his taking the Nestle shilling.

It's hard to think of the equivalent happening here.

Anyone planning on hunkering down and watching their screen heroes' old exploits on DVD for the duration of what promises to be a long action, be warned if you are investing in the latest hardware. Make sure you buy Sony Blu-ray technology as the rival Toshiba HD-DVD now goes the way of Betamax with Paramount's decision to back Blu-ray.

Thankfully, this household is always a good ten years behind the current technology - I will miss the cathode ray tube - so we are never caught out buying the Wrong Stuff. I'm still hanging onto my favourite videos 'cause I don't entirely trust those shiny little discs. Assuming we survive the dystopian downturn headed our way, we'll probably be ready for our first plasma screen the day civilisation finally crumbles to dust. But at least there'll be writers to write about it.