Terminator Genisys

 

Starring

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Emilia Clarke

Jason Clarke

Jai Courtney

Lee Byung-Hun

Directed by

Alan Taylor

Screenplay by

James Cameron et al

The Ultra Review are massive fans of Terminator. We’re talking a time-bending, reality-questioning, epiphany-inducing, existentialist crisis-causing level of fandom.

We know the name of the niteclub was Tech Noir and the street it was on was called Pinco in The Terminator. We know Miles Dyson’s middle name is Bennett and he called his son Danny. We know that John Connor’s stepmom, Janelle Voight, was played by Jenette Goldstein of Aliens and that she is Michelle Rodriguez’s mother. We know that the Terminatrix, in Rise of the Machines, was initially meant to be an Asian woman because the “Eastern look” is more menacing than that of a Caucasian woman to an American audience. We know that the name of the Cyberdyne’s cancer patient employee in Salvation was Dr Serena Kogan played by Helena Bonham Carter.

You get the picture.

So you can imagine our scepticism when we saw the trailer for the latest instalment in the Terminator franchise. 

Sure, there appeared to be plenty of special effects, chase scenes and action but we are part of an audience who were mesmerised by the first two movies, only for Hollywood to come along and take a big steaming dump on our beloved series by releasing two bastardised sequels, unworthy of the Terminator name. First, Rise of the Machines, ahem, gave rise to the pseudo-comedy version of Terminator, a movie in which armour-plated killing machine Arnie actually said the line “talk to the hand”. Then McG came along with Christian Bale’s MASSIVE ego and tried to completely destroy the winning formula of cat and mouse.

Going into a movie and expecting it to be rubbish gives it a tremendous advantage which Genisys took full advantage of.

There are three reasons The Ultra Review left the screening with a huge smile on its face.

1 – Attention to detail

There is so much attention to the little things in this movie that the inner nerd couldn’t help but literally coo when certain things happened on screen. For example, when half of Arnie’s face is taken clean off – hardly a spoiler, it’s about as inevitable as him uttering the words “I‘ll be back” – the exposed T-101 eye moved in sync with the human-looking eye. This has never happened before. In the past, the eye remained static. You may question the validity of highlighting this point in a review but this is just an example of the pain-staking lengths the makers of this movie went to to bring you an experience that even the most specky of Terminator nerds found hard to fault.

Danny Dyson is in the movie. Kyle Reece’s scars match those from T1. When recreating the opening scene from T1 they took care to remove Arnie’s gentials from the shot. These are all subtle but important details that add up.

2 – Logic

This film, unlike ROTM and Salvation is full to the brim of logic. For example, Arnie is old and looks it. Whereas in ROTM, his elderly appearance is poorly hidden behind layer upon layer of make-up, it is explained that Arnie looks old because his living tissue had aged over his metal endoskeleton because he has been around for so long. That makes sense. That is what was missing from this franchise – logic.

Another example of this detail is the plot. Skynet is directly linked to a new social network application which connects all of our devices. That makes sense. Judgement Day’s occurrence was blamed on inevitability in ROTM. How lazy is that?! Did they really sit around a desk, trying to decide on the plot and went with that? It just happened? Couldn’t they have said that they found Arnie’s arm from T2, the one we all saw him lose in the battle with the T-1000? Couldn’t they have said that the work Miles Dyson had done was backed up on an external computer system and that they merely carried on his work?

By using the app storyline, Genisys plays on the fears of technophobes, a theme wonderfully explored in the otherwise deeply flawed yet beautiful I Robot. This plot plays on the reservations and fears those of us who are unhappy with the level of communication surveillance that exists today and for those of us old enough to have been around for the entire franchise, there are bound to be a few.

3 – Finally…

This is the sequel that we have been waiting for since 1991. Lose ends are tied up. Things are explained. Angles are covered. The story is furthered. The product is enhanced. All without doing the sort of damage that the intervening movies have. Not to mention that AWFUL TV series which, other than in this sentence, we refuse to acknowledge.

Dark, exciting, thought-provoking and thoughtful, the movie was well on the way to be considered only the third movie ever to receive a five star rating from The Ultra Review. 

However, there are flaws which prevent this. One of which is HUGE!

1 – Pops

Sarah Connor refers to Arnie as “Pops”. Again, this is the movie applying logic but Pops? It just doesn’t suit an armour-plated killing machine, whose entry into our psyche is typified by requesting a Plasma Accelerator in a 40 watt range in a local gun store in the 80s.

2 – Comedy

When Arnie smiled in the Director’s Cut of T2, it was hilarious. It was a gem of a moment in a movie almost completely bereft of humour. It was a dark movie about the end of the world, insanity, existentialism and the inevitability of death. This moment was enough. However, the smile was recreated in Genisys at least five times which was at least four too many.

Also, the relationship between Kyle and Sarah contained far too many laughs and flirting. The Kyle of T1 was depressed and melancholic, a product of his time; ill-at-ease with the opposite sex and even ill-at-ease with the world’s scenery. This Kyle is smooth and comfortable with women and seems to know his way around a chat-up line. NO. NO. NO. Where is the pain? Where are the effects and the physical demeanour and shyness that come with a life of knowing nothing other than death and despair?

3 – John Connor

While the aforementioned flaws are just that – flaws – they can be overlooked due to the sheer quality of the movie. However, John Connor cannot. Why is he even in this movie? For fear of spoiling Genisys, I shall refer to this matter no longer as it would spoil a movie you really should see for yourself. Safe to say, his place in this movie leaves a sour taste in the mouth and takes away plenty of the good work done elsewhere.

The movie is crisp, special and if it were a book it would be a page turner. But John Connor takes an entire star off this movie.

Genisys is the perfect summer’s day; not a cloud in the sky, just the right amount of breeze to keep the heat bearable and as you stroll along the beach with your beautiful other half, you forget all of life’s troubles that come along with days that don’t begin with ‘S’ and all is well with the world. Then a big dirty seagull named John Connor comes along and streaks a big smelly stream of turdacious sputum across your favourite shirt.

However, it is the nuances that make this movie. Not merely copying the old movies but paying homage to the giant shoulders on which they stand.

That breeds greatness.

Rating: ✮✮✮✮

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGSxss7gWak

 

American Sniper

Directed by

Clint Eastwood

Starring

Bradley Cooper

Sienna Miller

Luke Grimes

Jake McDorman

Kyle Gallner

You can pretty much guess where this film headed right from the beginning - a one-way ticket to Fiction Town. Step 1 - the twin towers are attacked. Step 2 - our hero signs up to be a Navy SEAL. Step 3 - he's shooting people in Iraq. Can we just clear something up from the off? Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Not even the US propaganda machine could have spun that one. It's going to be a long movie.

American Sniper is the (ahem) true story of Chris Kyle, famous for being the most lethal sniper in US military history. Bradley Cooper, adopted an intense workout regime to bulk up and look like Kyle, when he wasn't busy being Tinseltown's latest darling and taking the world's most cringe-worthy selfies. He even spent much time with Kyle's widow to get a true feel for what it was like to be Kyle. As an exercise in acting, Cooper does a great job. They even say he refused to leave character for the duration of filming. Even when at home, he refused to be called anything other than Chris. Method acting is in these days.

Sienna Miller plays the girl-next-door-yet-unrealistically-hot-all-American love interest of Kyle. You begin to feel for her for falling in love with such an affable and charming young man but when the bullets fly, she sticks around. Despite questioning his work and demanding his return, when you turn a blind eye a lá Carmella Soprano or Skylar White, you are just as guilty as your sociopathic husband. Enable and facilitate but don't expect sympathy when ye both pull that trigger.

The movie is based on the autobiography of Kyle, written when he came home from war in Iraq (pronounced "EYE-RACK", obviously) about his time at the end of a long-distance weapon. To say that his actions in Iraq were glorified is putting it mildly. This is nothing more than a recruitment film for potential American soldiers. An expensively-made and expertly edited piece of propaganda to further increase the anti-Muslim sentiment that is the narrative of the western world right now. When you go to the cinema, you leave your disbelief at the door, you understand that what you are about to witness is a work of fiction. Indeed, this was a work of fiction, taken directly from the thoughts of a psychopathic murderer of men, women and children. This was not a documentary yet those who watch the movie will doubtlessly be enthralled and influenced by the message; America good, Muslim bad. 

Throughout the movie, Kyle's heroic murders are flanked by the altogether more evil murders of his equally skilled adversary, Random Parkour Sniper Guy. This is where the movie takes a turn off Racism Street and down into Ridiculous Avenue. Random is dark, mysterious, always up to no good and a defender of evil. His appearance is particularly ridiculous. As if we didn't already understand that he was a bad guy due to the colour of his skin and his patchy pubic beard, they gave him copious amounts of eyeliner to really hammer it home. THIS IS A BAD GUY. In fact, the only thing darker than his intentions and his skin is his weapon. Kyle's tool of choice to kill is painted in military livery, fresh, discreet, a classic design, whereas Random's weapon is slick black, as black as his heart and as bad as his evil intentions. It's like watching a James Bond movie! The modern hero versus the generic bad guy. If it wasn't depicted as being real, it would be humourous.

The movie comes out with such beauties as "I want you to put the fear of god into these savages" and "this is for god, country and family". When these lines are uttered, it struck me that perhaps the movie MAY be a subliminal and very realistic critique of Kyle and the invasion/occupation of Iraq. That, just maybe, they are giving us a gritty depiction of the evil behind genocide and the brainwashing that occurs to make a man leave his young family and fly around the world murdering people. Director Clint Eastwood has of course flown in the face of accepted narrative before, directing Letters From Iwo Jima. I toyed with the idea that perhaps this was a searing indictment of America's destruction of the Middle East, as if Eastwood had produced a more serious version of Team America. Could this really be a satire and a metaphor for the brainwashing of both the soldier and the American citizen? Cooper and Kyle's widow have spent recent months promoting the movie by touring the world, praising the heroic deeds of her husband. Well, there goes that idea! 

Any symbolism here is purely accidental and in the eyes if the beholder only. What a shame, this movie could have been a much-needed criticism of the engagements of the battlefield and the needlessness of death it brings. In fact, the only pity we feel is for our hero when he starts to suffer mentally from all the killing he witnesses. Only when his colleagues begin to fall does he begin to question what he is doing. In one moment of poignancy, a young soldier calls himself a legend, Kyle's moniker, to which Kyle replies: "That's a title you don't want, trust me." Don't be fooled, this is not guilt because of murder, this is guilt because of survival. We are expected to feel bad for Kyle. Are we expected to forget that he bravely put bullets in men, women and children for the entire movie?! 

In the movie, every single Iraqi is depicted as a terrorist (there's that word!) and having some kind of ulterior motive. The movie is completely ignorant to the fact that Iraq did actually have a trained army and peaceful citizens. Not every man, woman and child can maneuver a rocket-launcher and strap themselves with explosives. Then again, if it told the truth, who would read the book and who would watch the movie?

This film has two plus points. One is that it brilliantly depicts guerrilla warfare better than anything since Ché: Part One. Some of the fighting scenes are intense and are up there with anything ever made anywhere. Of this, Eastwood can be very proud. Secondly, the movie as a stand alone movie is actually quite engaging. You are pulled in and you begin to care about what happens to the main characters, be it support or the wish of capitulation. That is important in a movie.

However, the evils of this movie cannot be ignored. Journalist Rania Khalek described the movie as "racist atrocity pornography". It is a movie dedicated to the life and actions of a murderer, a racist, a killer of innocent animals for fun and a bigot. Chris Kyle killed 160 Iraqis in their own land and for what? Bradley Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Sienna Miller and everyone else involved in this movie should be ashamed of themselves.

If you want to see a decent movie about this time, this theme and this war, watch The Hurt Locker and avoid this dross. It has better acting, is a better movie and more importantly, knows it is fiction.

To quote Team America: "America - FUCK YEAH!"

Rating: ✮

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRbAXWfthtA

Team America trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPBX47zSktc