REVIEW: Terminator Genisys (2015) Screenplay

Runtime: 130 Mins (est)
What To Expect: A screenplay that makes Rise of the Machines and even Sarah Connor Chronicles look like master works

After I read the screenplay for RoboCop (2012) years ago, I thought there was nothing I’d read ever again that could be worse.  Sitting here in despair and not too far away from rage, I have been proven wrong, since I have just finished reading the screenplay for Terminator: Genisys, an incomprehensibly awful piece of wretched shit. I hate and despise it, in so many ways that I can barely even articulate it.  You think the pictures, rumours and trailers are bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.  This movie is going to be the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger, his career is going to finish where it started, ironically, down town Los Angeles, 1984.

This screenplay is obviously for a movie tooled for iPhone generation kids, the spawn of Transformers and Iron Man only with screenwriting the producers of those movies wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.  It opens by explaining everything that has already been established, many, many times over, such as who John Connor is and what Judgement Day was.  Nobody under 20 needs to be told what these things are.  Go figure.  From there, it takes a giant rusty hatchet to everything you’ve ever loved about the Terminator franchise.  Kyle Reese is sent back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor.  A T-1000, T-800 and T-850 are also sent to 1984. But no need to worry, Sarah Connor is kicking ass with the help of an aged T-800, which has raised her from 1973, to deal with the problems.

What is this, Reese asks?  Why it’s her ‘Pops’, hardened Sarah says, a father figure who has filled in for her murdered parents for the past 11 years, including watching Seasame Street with her and taking her to do the zoo.  Oh yes, you see, the pensioner Terminator has also now developed feelings, which at one point are hurt by Kyle Reese, who is informed by Sarah Connor that he needs to be more careful around the robot when talking.  I am not making any of this up.  Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, by the way, will make the ‘Village People’ Terminator from T3 look resolutely mean and badass.  Through time he has developed a sense of ‘humour’ too, for instance, with truly awful wisecracks that would even pass in a G-rated movie, let alone PG-13.  He comes across to me less killer cyborg, more ‘Thor’.  A big lovable oaf.

But if you think that shit is going to torture you, fear not, because the majority of the screentime is owned by Kyle Reese, played by Jai Courtney.  I don’t know how this guy won the right to carry a Terminator movie on his back, but it shall be so.  It seemed to me that he more than any other member of the cast was on every page, nearly every scene.  Schwarzenegger’s Terminator shows up quite a bit too – don’t get me wrong – but it’s like he’s only there for crude brawling with numerous other cyborgs and shark jumping action such as acting as a cybernetic cruise missile taking out mid-air targets.  That leads me to another point, there’s too much action, none of it impressive, and you get the sense that its relentlessness is to cover up the truly terrible ‘twists’.  And they do materialize…

They have absolutely mauled Terminator lore here in trying to give it an edgy reboot.  With terrible characters, a totally shameful turn for Arnold Schwarzenegger and a story that makes The Sarah Connor Chronicles look like a masterpiece – but all of this is before the final insult.  I’m talking about the big one here.  Worse than the horrific ‘daddy’s little girl’ plot arc, worse than the family-orientated action.  Search the net, you’ll find out what I’m talking about.  I’m so angry, I don’t even want to repeat it.  Your reaction will first be disbelief, then laughter, then anger, then depression.  It’s a plot twist involving John Connor and a state of the art virus.  Sound bad?  You really don’t know the half of it.

An absolutely terrible and atrocious screenplay.  This movie is going to be really, really bad.