20 Reasons Why You Suck: Terminator Genisys

One of the best things about writing these types of posts is that I don’t have to come up with an entire paragraph teasing whether or not I enjoyed the movie in question. You can see from the title that I didn’t. But there has to be a reason for someone to click on this so I’ll tell you that the most recent film in the Terminator franchise swung and missed on nearly every single major point. If the filmmakers were banking on the popularity of the franchise or the nostalgia surrounding Arnold Schwarzenegger then they were badly mistaken. Action movies typically don’t need the viewing audience to be smart. Science Fiction films can sometimes test the intelligence of those watching it but I would argue that time travel movies NEED to be somewhat smart about how they go about their story. When you start getting into alternate timelines and dimensions you run the risk of sounding like some homeless drug addict, rambling about talking to shadows in the alley. Terminator Genisys felt like it had no freakin’ clue what it was doing. I could talk all day about how much I hated this movie, but let’s first start with just 20 Reasons Why Terminator Genisys Sucks!

1. I’ve never seen two actors seem less like grizzled veterans than when Jai Courtney and Jason Clarke came on screen. Both of them are veterans of terrible action movies, for sure. But neither one of them projects the grit necessary to portray a man who has been fighting against robots for their very lives and future.

2. As much as I hated this movie, I do have to admit that the young Arnold effects were impressive. In fact, the first part of the movie, setting up the story of Kyle Reese heading back and meeting up with Sarah Connor and her Guardian was pretty decent. I couldn’t stand any of the actors playing their parts, though. Clarke and Courtney for the already mentioned softness and Emilia Clarke for the following…

3. What is with Emilia’s hair? This chick is supposed to be living in 1984! Men had bigger hair in the 1980s than Clarke did in this movie. She has a ponytail and bangs. Give me a break guys! Hell, Thor had better hair in Thor Dark World (which Alan Taylor directed) than Emilia. If you’re gonna place your movie in the past you could at least try and make it look old. Get this broad a perm!

4. Your weapons are all wrong. Kyle Reese picks up and uses an AR-15 with a collapsible stock. There is no way in Hell that you could get an AR with a collapsible stock in 1984. It’s also of note that Reese fires a grenade from his 203 grenade launcher at something like 20 feet with absolutely no damage to himself! No only would the round not explode at that range but even if we assume that it did (which it wouldn’t) it would mess his ass up. By the way, what the hell is up with the body armor of the future? It doesn’t look protective at all. It just looks cumbersome and plastic. Michael Biehn laughs at your designer body armor.

5. The acid barrels at the beginning is actually a really good idea. It would have made for a pretty cool ending to the film. I should have just stopped watching the movie right there.

6. Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese are willing to travel through time and fight against nearly unkillable robots but they’re not willing to just bang it out to make a kid. A kid that will eventually grow up and save the world. And they’re both very attractive people. These two need to get their priorities straight!

7. Reese is from the future and Sarah is from the past….they are going to hate 2017.

8. The two heroes travel to 2017 before some mysterious Genisys App hits and they go the day before the big debacle. Maybe they should have given themselves a little more time. Why not take a page from the machines playbook and just take it out a couple years before its release?

9. Hey Danny Dyson, you’re an idiot! I get it, his dad is the brains behind Skynet and all but why would Danny follow in his Dad’s footsteps? Nothing bad ever happened to his father, did it?

10. The police in the 2017 of Terminator Genisys are nearly as dumb as some of the ones we have in the 2017 of real life. They capture the couple butt-ass naked in the middle of the freeway, question them about all sorts of crazy stuff, then just leave them in a room by themselves. Did they want them to escape?

11. Magnets will save all of mankind from the Machines!!!

12. Holy crap…is evil machine John Connor trying to murder his parents before they conceive him? Does that even make sense in this convoluted and ridiculous alternate timeline business that they’ve created. How would John Connor exist if they never plow?

13. Damn you Arnold. You’ve been waiting for them for over 30 years and now you’re all wasting your time loading magazines! If I was Sarah or Kyle and I showed up into the future to save mankind and had to load all of my own ammo I would be so pissed!

14. Terrible Police strike again! They put out spike strips to stop the escapees, which doesn’t sound too crazy, but when you put them out on a super busy bridge you’re just waiting to get someone killed.

15. Evil robot John steals a motorcycle because it’s a Terminator movie and someone has to drive one, but he takes the time to also acquire a leather jacket. Smart move robot.

16. Is it at all creepy that Sarah is now hanging out with the 12 year old version of the guy that she’s going to be bumping uglies with? I don’t even like to look at photos of my wife before she turned 18.

17. Helicopter chase scenes sound good on paper but they look absoulultely terrible in an Alan Taylor movie. Good thing they spend so much time and effort to crash the John Connor chopper because he crashes next to the runway and still beats them into the building.

18. Evil robot John Connor gets punched to death. The future of humanity was saved by punching someone in the face multiple times.

19. This movie is a sad excuse for a Terminator movie. The Christian Bale one was bad but this one’s villain is an App. It must have been written by either some millennial idiots or some middle-aged guy who doesn’t know how to work his smart phone.

20. That entire building just imploded around them but thankfully they were saved by that heavy door. I had already given up on this movie by this time so there wasn’t much that could surprise me. It was just so bad. The Machines are so terrible at killing people which is weird because they apparently kill millions if not billions of people. But for a movie that is about the potential end of humanity Terminator Genisys sure does have a lot of attempts at humor.