Film review: Terminator Genisys

Arnold Schwarzenegger is true to his word and returns as the mechanised killing machine in this reboot of the Terminator franchise, directed by Alan Taylor, which promises to tell the same origin story from a fresh perspective.

Released in 1984, James Cameron’s groundbreaking sci-fi thriller The Terminator tapped into concerns about nuclear warfare to explore a dystopian future in which machines have rebelled against mankind and rendered our species 
almost obsolete.

Terminator Genisys follows a similarly bleak narrative trajectory. In the aftermath of judgment day, when machines rebelled against their human creators, the last struggling vestiges of humanity face complete extinction at the hands of the automata.

Rebel leader John Connor (Jason Clarke) hopes to give humanity a fighting chance by sending his friend Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to 1986 to protect his helpless mother Sarah (Emilia Clarke) from a shape-shifting Terminator (Byung-hun Lee). When Kyle finally catches up with Sarah, he discovers that he is in an altered timeline in which the Connor matriarch is a well-honed fighting machine, who already has protection: an ageing T-800 model Terminator (Schwarzenegger) that has become a father figure to Sarah in an uncertain and sometimes brutal world.

Kyle joins forces with Sarah and her hulking henchman to fend off attacks from the evil Terminator and bring down Skynet.

However, the machines have learnt from their mistakes and have the perfect secret weapon to outwit Sarah and her wily bodyguard.