Arnie’s back!

Well, he did say he’d be back. He’s slipped the iconic phrase into practically every interview he’s done in the past decade, and even into his appearances in other movie franchises. But this time, it’s actually true. Arnie is back as the Terminator.

It’s incredible to believe that in the 24 years since Terminator 2, in my opinion the greatest pure action film ever made, we haven’t had a sequel worthy of lacing the stolen-at-gunpoint boots of the first two. That’s my entire lifetime almost to a day, and sadly, I must report, I’m still waiting.

No, Terminator Genisys isn’t as bad as aggregate reviews or the fact it has bombed at the box office in the US would suggest. It’s a decent action movie and is mostly respectful of its predecessors, but occasionally slips into sycophantic pandering that breaks immersion and ultimately becomes bogged down in its muddling mythology.

The fifth instalment in the series sees the already-convoluted timeline become nigh-on incomprehensible as it takes yet another divergent from the originally-established narrative.

Genisys starts with Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) traveling back to 1984 to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), only to find the situation incredibly different than he expected.

Instead of the timid and horrified waitress we met in the original, Sarah is already a hardened, battle-ready warrior, trained since childhood by ‘Guardian’, which, of course, turns out to be Arnie’s Terminator that we all know and love.

Well aware of the entire scenario in the future having been informed by the time-travelling Terminator, Sarah is determined to stop Skynet once and for all (which has been the sole aim of four movies already, you’d think they’d have either figured out how to do it or given up by now). This involves yet another plan involving time-travelling to yet another era, where things don’t go according to plan.

Attempting to keep up with proceedings, particularly if you haven’t seen at least the first two films, is almost impossible, and there’s even entire websites with fancy diagrams devoted to explaining the series’ timeline that I’ve pored over but can’t quite get my head around. There’s paradoxes aplenty, and Genisys’ styling as a quasi-reboot/reimagining/alternate timeline of the first movie just adds a whole new layer of complexity.

In the end, unless you have the analytical brain of Sherlock Holmes or the sheer brainpower of Stephen Hawking, you’re going to be watching this for the action scenes and the characters.

In that department, it’s a mixed bag. Arnie is still awesome as the T-800, and his stuttering, dreadful acting just suits his most famous robotic role whereas in any other movie it’d be hilariously bad. He’s 68 this week, but back in this role he looks 20 years younger and carries himself with the required steel and gravitas.

It just wouldn’t be a Terminator movie without him, and it’s good to have him back. Terminator Salvation was actually a good film (much better than the dreadful 3) and I wish they’d have carried on with that timeline, but it still just didn’t feel right while the icon was busying himself with politics.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of the supporting cast. Emilia Clarke is just entirely miscast in the role of one of cinema’s great action heroines. Following on from Linda Hamilton and Lena Heady, she just doesn’t have the same believability or presence as a tough, defiant fighter that her predecessors had, and she looks too overtly young to buy into her as John Connor’s mother.

Granted, I may be slightly biased as I just can’t stand her after her performance as Daenerys Targaryen in Game Of Thrones (yes, I’ve activated the flame shield on my email inbox after typing that!), but there are numerous other actresses who would have been much better-suited.

Then other familiar faces, who I won’t spoil, show up purely for a ‘look, there’s so-and-so!’ cameo that doesn’t actually further the story.

The action scenes are nailed superbly, there’s no fault there. The film makes no attempt to hide Arnie’s age and there’s even some scientific explanation as to why he suddenly looks older, but it provides for some humorous moments as he recites ‘I’m old, not obsolete!’ a few times. It doesn’t make him any less of a warrior though, as he shoots and beats up bad guys in a melee of explosions with considerable ease.

Overall, Genisys’ main problem, aside from the horrific butchering of the English language in its title, is that it can’t assemble its grand and inventive ideas into a coherent and focused whole. Series veterans, never mind newcomers, will likely be utterly lost in the timeline and casting decisions are questionable at best.

Still, it’s a Terminator movie and it features the return of one of cinema’s most iconic actors and characters. For that alone, it’s worth a watch.

* Showing in Cineco, Seef l, Seef ll, Saar, Al Jazira and Dana Cineplex