All things old are new again. Dinos are running rampant on the island, the Muppets have their own prime time variety program and Arnold is up to his old tricks in Terminator Genisys.

**Warning:  There will be spoilers!!**

The story begins with the film series’ ever central figure of resistance leader, John Connor (Jason Clarke), leading his troops into a final showdown with Skynet and the killer machines that have laid waste to humanity. With the knowledge of what needs to happen, Connor leads his men to an unassuming bunker that holds Skynet’s last line of defense. A time machine that will send a Terminator to the past to assassinate Sarah Connor before she can give birth to freedom fighter John. The soldiers are too late to stop the killer bot from jumping to 1984 but John’s right hand man, Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) volunteers to go after the Terminator and to protect Sarah. In mid transit, Reese witnesses a soldier assault John which sets off a chain reactions of memories that do not seem to be his own and yet are.

Kyle arrives in the past but finds himself under siege by a T-1000 (Byung-hun Lee), the liquid metal Terminator which should not be in this time period. Reese is chased into a department store where he is apprehended by two police officers. Not heeding his warning, one cop is quickly dispatched by the T-1000 but an armored vehicle comes crashing in to save the day. Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) and our old friend the T-800 (Arnold Schwartzenegger) are here to save the day. Confused, Kyle tries to destroy the Terminator but to no avail. Awakening, he comes face to face with the T-800 that was sent back to kill Sarah, killed by Connor and as she affectionately calls Arnold, “Pops”. Through the Los Angeles streets, they lure the liquid cyborg into their underground lair. Sarah sets the trap and disintegrates the T-1000 with acid. All that has happened is part of an alternate reality that was created as a result of….well you will just have to watch. Sarah and Kyle time travel to 2017 to stop Skynet. Or Genisys. Or stop …..John Connor?

I have to be honest, I really disliked the last Hollywood attempt at the Terminator series, Salvation. While Genisys is not as bad as that, it tries hard to be a hot mess and mostly succeeds.  The story starts out fine but gets immediately convoluted once Reese crash lands in the 80’s, which look nothing like the 80’s whatsoever. The film is a non stop trip down nostalgia one liner lane (Come with me if you want to live, I’ll be back, zzzzz). And if time travel is this easy why not go back and kill Skynet’s creator Miles Dyson (Courtney B. Vance) when he was a baby? The movie is almost single-handedly saved by the brilliant J.K. Simmons but even he can’t save the future. And the ultra secret role for Doctor Who himself, Matt Smith? Underwhelming.

While the special effects are excellent and the many chase scenes are visually stunning, Terminator Genisys left this reviewer wishing he had a time machine to get those two hours and six minutes back.

1 T-3000’s out of 5