Tag Archives: terminator genisys

Top 5 Worst Films of Summer 2015

With the good, comes that bad. Summer 2015 gave us some solid films, but it also gave us a lot (and I mean, *a lot*) of trash. So I try my best to narrow them down to five films here. Thank God I get to list out 10 films at the end of the year…

Dishonorable Mention: Mad Max: Fury Road

This isn’t a good movie, it’s just a well-made one. People seem unable to separate the two. I don’t get how when Michael Bay throws explosions on the screen in sacrifice of plot or character development he is crucified, but when George Miller does it he is praised as a genius.

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5.) Entourage

On top of being the biggest disappointment of 2015 so far, this was also just a miss on all cylinders. I love “Entourage” the show, I love Los Angeles and I love to laugh, and this film really doesn’t pay much honor to any of these things. It is an unfunny, skin-deep movie that was only not a total bomb because of the familiar faces in the best city on earth. That’s it.

Variety

Variety

4.) Tomorrowland

Quick: what is this movie about? That’s OK, I’ll wait. Give up? Cool, because I have no idea, either. Something about George Clooney and his love affair with a 10-year-old robot (it is slightly less creepy within the context of the film), and I think there was something else about the end of the world and Dr. House was there. I really hated this movie. I walked out not liking it, but in the three months that have passed, I’ve grown to loathe it. Just not as much as these remaining three films.

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3.) Terminator Genisys

Just like “Tomorrowland,” I didn’t mind this film while watching (I realized it wasn’t good, but in-the-moment I was tricked to thinking it wasn’t awful). But the ending draws on for 15 minutes, and it has some of the worst CGI I have ever seen in a film in the 21st century. It just isn’t good, and hopefully this franchise is…terminated. [clears throat] OK, what’s next?

Variety

Variety

2.) Pixels

Like most people, I was tricked by the trailer for “Pixels” into thinking this wouldn’t be a normal Adam Sandler comedy; but much to my dismay, this is just a normal Adam Sandler comedy, it just happens to have video games in it. It is bottom-of-the-barrell, lowest effort humor, and its best attribute is Josh Gad, which is never a good sign.

Variety

Variety

1.) Fantastic Four

HAHAHAHAHAHA oh my God, this thing is awful. Like I’ve forgetten like 95% of it but holy heck is this bad. Nothing happens until a rushed and horribly standard final fight sequence, and it wastes a fantastic young cast. All the behind the scenes drama is much, MUCH more interesting than the actual film, so go give those stories a read. It’s films like this that make it hard for people like me to trust the month of August…

Variety

Variety

Someone Please Terminate ‘Genisys’

Terminator_GenisysCalifornia just can’t seem to catch a break at the movies this summer. First an earthquake tears it apart in “San Andreas,” then Los Angeles is again soiled by the trash that was “Entourage,” and now it is the host of the nuclear apocalypse. And we thought a drought was their biggest problem.

“Terminator Genisys” is the fifth film in the Terminator franchise and the first since 2009. When Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back to 1984 to protect Sarah Conner (Emilia Clarke), he finds out that he has entered an alternate timeline, and must team up with Sarah and the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to stop Judgement Day from ever happening. Alan Taylor directs.

I don’t really know where to start with “Genisys”. I guess a fair place would be with the name, which isn’t even technically a word. In the film Genisys is the name of a program, but even then they don’t explain why it couldn’t be “Geneses”. I suppose that perfectly sums up “Terminator Genisys”: is doesn’t fully know what it wants to be, and is just a rip-off of a better, more coherent item.

“Genisys” [sigh] starts off in the events leading up to the opening moments of the original “Terminator” film, which was kind of cool. We get to see the other side of the time portal and what really led to the machines sending back Arnie, and why Reese was selected for the mission. Then everything starts to go downhill.

I got the feeling from the trailers and seeing the film just confirmed it: there is nothing special about this film, on any level. By that I mean it is just a cookie-cutter, PG-13 summer action flick, filled with standard, cliché action sequences and some cringe-worthy dialogue (which makes sense seeing as one of the film’s screenwriters has spent most of his career as an editor). And when lines aren’t clunky, they’re attempts at humor that are just that: attempts.

The biggest swing-and-a-miss at a joke was when Reese is fighting the 1984 Schwarzenegger Terminator he says, “I didn’t volunteer for this”. Oh, really? Because last time I checked you signed up to go back in time and protect Sarah Conner from the very Terminator you are currently fighting.

Not helping the cause is Jai Courtney, who plays Reese. Courtney seems like a cool guy in real life, but in movies he has done little to establish himself as a charismatic leading man. He delivers each line of serious dialogue with unintentional laughs, and botches every attempt at comedic relief. You never for a second buy that there is romantic chemistry between him and Sarah, and the absolute only reason you even window shop the idea is because you know in the first film they fell in love.

Alan Taylor directs this and I want to know the name of the studio executive that watched “Thor: The Dark World” and went, “Yes! Know the guy who directed the only bad Marvel film? Get me him; he’s the man to save the Terminator franchise!” Alan does nothing inspiring with his camera or narrative, and by the halfway point of the 30 minute climax I just kept rolling my eyes and thinking “oh my God, movie, end!”

The special effects aren’t even great, and if your special effects aren’t good in 2015, you really messed up. The film has a few nice twists (even though most are ruined in the trailer for whatever reason), and almost has an interesting bit of social commentary on what led to the apocalypse, but these are all squashed under the cardboard characters and increasingly frustrating tangled web that is a plot.

“Terminator Genisys” starts off well, and for a few minutes in the middle showed a glimpse at maybe getting good, but it quickly makes a detour back into Snoozeville…Population: the audience. Seeing Arnold back in his most famous role was fun for a second, but he’s ironically said “I’ll be back” in every film he’s been in since 1985, so my face remained stoic when the line was delivered here.

If you’re a diehard Terminator fan, then watch “Genisys” (that name, man, I’m telling you) when it comes out on DVD. If you could care less about the mythology of the franchise and just want some summer fun, go see “Jurassic World” again. Or throw two robot action figures at each other for two hours. I’m sure there’s more of narrative and fun to be found doing that than watching this.

Critics Rating: 3/10

Variety

Variety