Seconds before the time (displacement blah blah blah) machine sends Kyle off to 1984, John is attacked by a member of his Resistance. Kyle witnesses it just before he gets zapped back in time, but it’s to late to do anything about it. During his travel, Kyle gets visions of experiences that he never had. In one of them, he receives a birthday gift called “Genisys” and a countdown is displayed on a type of ipad as he tells himself in a mirror “Genisys is Skynet” This doesn’t make any sense at the moment, but will.

When Kyle lands in 1984, the timeline from the first film has changed and he is greeted by an Asian T-1000. At the same time, Sarah and her friendly T-800 companion that she calls “pops” destroy the bad T-800 that was sent back to 1984 to kill her. They then have just enough time to rescue Kyle from the department store where he is hiding from the T-1000. Talk about a busy day.

It turns out Sarah was attacked in 1973 when she was nine by a T-1000. Pops saved her and has been protecting her ever since. I don’t like this concept. Who the hell sent him and a T-1000 back to 1973!? Pops said he doesn’t know and his files regarding this matter were erased. How freakin convenient! I assume this will be answered in the sequels (if they happen) if not, that’s just shitty writing. Also, have they been on the run from the same T-1000 since 73?

Skynet just keeps sending robots back in time to try and kill the Connors and sucking at it. When we look at the history of the franchise & all the botched attempts to stop the Connors we now have… Sarah in 1973, Sarah in 1984, John in 1995 & John again in 2004.  I have an idea! Why not send one back in time to destroy the entire bloodline starting from when they were cavemen?

Moving along, Pops, Kyle and Sarah dispose of the Asian T-1000 and evil T-800 in 1984.  Wow, they did in about 30 minutes what it took two entire movies to do! It also turns out, they made there own time machine (with parts in 1984?) and plan to go to August 1997 to put a final stop to Judgement Day. Kyle doesn’t like the idea and insists on going to October 2017 because his visions told him. Pops theorizes (since Terminators are now specialists in physics and not just killing machines anymore)  that when John was attacked before Kyle went through time, it created some time rift/ space time continuum junk and he was able to see two different possible futures. In one of them, Kyle sees himself getting cool birthday presents like an ipad and the other he grows up in the ashes of a shitty war. I know which one I would want!

Kyle sells Sarah on the 2017 idea (cause who doesn’t want a cool ipad) Kyle and Sarah strip down and arrive naked in the middle of a busy San Francisco highway in 2017. They are quickly arrested & questioned. Magically appearing in the middle of an interstate like your David Blaine might raise a few questions. While being treated at a hospital, they learn that Genisys is a highly intelligent global operating system that the public is basically having an orgasm over. Guess what, it  goes live in a day! It would have been a lot smarter to suggest traveling to August or September 2017 to better prepare the attack. Don’t ya think? Instead, they only have crappy hours to succeed. Genisys is like the future of Google if you ask me. I already don’t like how if I buy tickets to a concert, I get an email notification on my phone the day of, telling me what time I should leave my apartment to be on time. That freaks me out. Anyway, John Connor shows up at the hospital and springs Sarah and Kyle from police custody. This happy clappy reunion is short lived as Pops greats John with a gun shot in the parking lot. Surprise, John is now a Terminator! It turns out that sneaky resistance fighter that attacked John was the T-5000 (skynet) disguising itself.

So,when the T-5000 attacked John it turned him into a T-3000. Everyone got that? Enough with the damn model numbers! T-800, T-1000, T-3000, T-5000. Plus, if you feel like including the Universal Studios Terminator 2 3D ride, they have a damn T-1,000,000! When does it end?  I’m also confused because the T-800 model has also been referred to as “CyberDyne Systems model 101” What does that mean!? Then Terminator 3 had the T-X? So, a T-10!? that’s the lowest model number yet and it’s more advanced!? What the hell?

Anyway, back to the story. John was sent back by Skynet to assist Cyberdyne in the development of Genisys. He even helped them build a prototype time machine & liquid metal alloy. I guess when you automatically know how to make cool shit it doesn’t matter where you got your degree from?

Kyle, Pops and Sarah escape from John to a safe house. They load up on explosives and ammo and get ready to go kick some ass and destroy Cyberdyne and Genisys. Of course, John finds them. More fighting, driving and flying occur. Arnold gives us his “I’ll be back” one liner.

We endup at the final showdown in the Cyberdyne building. John speeds up the “Go live” countdown for Genisys to a matter of minutes. Pops, Kyle and Sarah go for the mainframe room to plant explosives. How does Pops know where to plant the explosives? Well, Pops had a lot of free time on his hands to wait for Kyle and Sarah to arrive. He got a job in construction and helped build the Cyberdyne building. I’m not kidding. I guess the construction company doesn’t do background checks?

Pops and the T-3000 get in a final showdown. After tossing each other around like battle bots for a bit, they end-up in the prototype time machine. The intense magnetic field destroys them. Pops gets launched into a vat of liquid metal just before the  explosion occurred Then the bombs go off and destroy the servers preventing Genisys from going online. Sarah & Kyle appear trapped in a bunker from the explosion but then Pops emerges and is upgraded. He uses his new T-1000 type hands to free them. I really wish they just killed off Arnold. Isn’t it time to move on?

In the final scene we see Pops, Sarah and Kyle travel to Kyle’s childhood home. He tells his younger self about Genisys and wants him to repeat the warning. Nothing like a bunch of creepy strangers on your property to tell you about prophecies. Where are the parents! Stranger danger!  Sarah, Kyle and Pops then drive off. THE END.

As I stated in my opening, the film wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. That doesn’t mean it was great though. At least it attempts to add a new element into the mix by making John the bad guy. However, in doing so, they created new plot issues and holes that I feel will be a pain in the ass to patch up if this trilogy should continue.

Score: 5.5/10

Pros:

+ John as the bad guy is a nice change of pace for the series

+ Arnold vs Arnold in 1984

Cons:

– To many new plot holes and questions

– Not a fan of the casting

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