This is the 5th film in the series and the cracks are really showing. Genisys starts out promising with an interesting trip back to the original film but with a twist. All of these early scenes at least keep your attention but once Jai Courtney becomes the focus of the story, things get truly disastrous.
I can’t express enough how awful Jai Courtney is in this film. His acting is a pale comparison of Michael Biehn’s original iconic role as Reese. And I’m sorry to say but Emilia Clarke doesn’t work here either. She isn’t terrible in the way Courtney (and at least has a little charisma unlike him) but none of what she does clicks. There’s zero chemistry between them and about half way through, you realize their scenes feel more like a high school play pretending to act in a Terminator movie.
Schwarzenegger comes out looking the best here but with a script so poorly conceived, he should have known better and told the writers to go back to the drawing board. My favorite was probably JK Simmons show gets a pitifully small role but makes gold out of every minute of it. I also didn’t hate Jason Clarke. The script is the real problem here with cringe-inducing throughout. Let’s hope the next installment (international box office saved this film and guaranteed a sequel) will spend more time on story.