So the Terminator franchise has had some pretty great and pretty terrible entries over the
years.
And by that I mean most anything that came after 1991 wasn’t that good.
But regardless, let’s talk about all of them.
And warning, there will be spoilers here, so I’ve put the times of the movies in the
description so you can skip around.
Alright, let’s get into this.
Terminator Let’s start off with the all-time classic,
The Terminator.
Much like when I talked about Star Wars, it’s kind of hard to talk about something that’s
this iconic.
Pretty much everything is great in this.
The performances are fantastic all around.
Michael Biehn is amazing as Kyle Reese, Linda Hamilton is really good as Sarah Connor, and
Arnold was born to play this role.
The Terminator itself is also a fantastic, really scary villain, and his opening where
he rips that guy’s heart out is spectacular.
The movie’s rated r and it’s pretty brutal in a lot of parts.
And it’s also pretty frightening.
It’s very tense and exciting, and the Terminator, especially towards the end, is terrifying.
Something that you can’t kill that keeps coming after you is just inherently pretty
scary, and the metallic skull doesn’t really help either.
The movie has great action, great visual effects (especially for the 80s), great music, great
directing, great pacing.
It’s funny and kind of goofy in some parts but also manages to pull off some serious
moments, which is impressive.
There are tons of iconic moments and it’s super quotable, “come with me if you wanna
live, fuck you asshole, I’ll be back, get out” The premise is really cool and original,
with this future war and then time travel, there’s a really good twist with Kyle Reese
actually being John Connor’s father (although it is kind of weird that he sent his own dad
back in time to, you know, conceive him, but whatever).
And really, the movie is just super entertaining.
If I had to nitpick something, some of the visual effects are kind of dated.
Most of this stuff is great, but some of it does not hold up.
That’s pretty much it.
So ultimately, I know I’ve kept this pretty brief, but this is just a pretty spectacular
movie.
It’s one of the best film classics, it’s a great action thriller, it’s filled with
fantastic performances and iconic moments.
There’s not much to say here except, go watch it!
I’ll give The Terminator a 9.7/10.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day So now let’s move on to the perfect sequel
and the best action movie of all time, Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
A film that does everything perfectly.
A film that I legit cannot find anything wrong with.
I don’t really know where to start here.
OK, let’s go with cast and characters.
Again, they’re all fantastic.
Linda Hamilton transitions from this scared waitress character to an almost insane badass
really well.
Arnold is great again, and it’s really cool to see him as a good guy this time around.
For the most part Edward Furlong is really good.
Robert Patrick is great in this, Miles Dyson is great in this, Hank from Breaking Bad is
great in this.
Ok, he’s in it for like two seconds, but it’s Hank!
*spanish for asshole clip* And nearly all of the characters evolve and change in a natural
way either from how they were in the last movie or how they were at the start of this
movie, which is awesome and is what a sequel should do.
And on that note, again, this is the perfect sequel.
It does everything the first film did and makes it better, while also pushing the story
and characters forward into new directions.
The action is stepped up and it is absolutely amazing.
The visual effects are incredible, for the time and also for today.
If these effects were in a movie today, I’d still be saying they were great.
The villain is great again with the T-1000, one of the best movie villains of all time.
He’s deadly, he’s creepy, and he’s terrifying, in that he could be anyone/anything around
you.
The music is iconic as hell, James Cameron’s directing is once again perfect.
And this is just a very well paced and structured movie.
It’s 2 and a half hours long but it feels much shorter.
They also changed this up from the first movie, 1, with the Terminator twist.
Turning one of the scariest movie villains of all time into one of the most badass heroes
of all time, that’s pretty hard to do but it is perfectly pulled off here.
But as far as tonally, this is more of an action movie and less of a kind of horror/thriller
movie.
There are some of those elements in here, especially with a lot of the T-1000 stuff,
but this is more of a full ahead action movie this time.
And it does that perfectly.
It’s entertaining as hell, it’s super funny, it’s full of iconic moments and even
more quotable lines, “hasta la vista, you clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle,
I need a vacation, chill out dickwad”, it’s more brutal and r rated than the first film,
it’s just everything.
The film also does something really impressive in balancing some of the most epic and badass
action moments and scenes in movie history with a really interesting and emotional story.
Like, you wouldn’t necessarily expect a movie like this to make you cry, but everytime
I see that ending, I can’t help it.
So ultimately, again, Terminator 2 is my favorite action movie of all time and in my opinion
is one of the best movies of all time.
It does a fantastic job of balancing fun crazy action and special effects with a fascinating
story and good characters.
It’s one of the most influential movies of all time, it’s just extremely entertaining
from start to finish, and to me it’s flawless.
So, I’m gonna give Terminator 2: Judgement Day a 10/10.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines So now we start the downfall of the Terminator
movies.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is an ok movie.
It’s a definite step down from what we’d seen before, but it’s better than what would
come later.
Ok, there are quite a few things I liked in this.
There are some cool action scenes here, some pretty funny moments, some great visual effects.
I like the idea of the TX.
It’s kind of a mix of the T-800 and the T-1000 and….whatever this is *arm turning
into a gun*.
Seeing Arnold back in this role is a lot of fun again, and overall, while it is a lot
dumber than the previous two movies, it’s still decently enjoyable.
I wouldn't recommend you go out and watch it, but it isn’t the worst way to spend
an hour and forty-five minutes.
THe one thing that I really liked in this was the ending, where the bombs drop and the
war with machines starts.
I think it’s really cool that no matter what they do, Judgement Day can’t be stopped.
They don’t do some kind of cop-out ending, Judgment Day comes, and the war is inevitable.
So, what did I not like here?
Well, this movie doesn’t really feel like a proper Terminator movie, James Cameron’s
absence is very noticeable.
Not only in the camerawork but also just how dumb and less self-aware it is.
It’s much more goofy than the others, from this scene *glasses* to this scene *bathroom
fight* to this scene.
*talk to the hand*.
The pacing is kind of weird, it feels oddly slow to me, the story has quite a few familiar
beats to it to the point where it just feels unoriginal.
The performances are ok, but there’s no Michael Biehn or Linda Hamilton, nothing really
sticks out as great.
There are quite a few plot holes, there are a couple of clunky, forced in references to
the other movies *psychologist, hasta la vista baby, you wanna live come on, she’ll be
back, I’m back*, and while some of the action is kind of cool, a lot of it is too up close,
shaky, and edited really fast, making it pretty hard to follow at times.
So in the end, Terminator 3 is...fine.
It’s nothing great, it’s nothing terrible, it’s fine.
For every cool moment and idea it has, it has a really dumb moment or idea.
I can’t say that I wasn’t at least slightly entertained throughout most of it, so I’ll
give Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines a 6.5/10.
Terminator: Salvation And now we’re here at Terminator: Salvation.
The bottom of the barrel.
Look, there are a few things in this that aren’t terrible, Christian Bale isn’t
that bad, although he really just yells for the whole movie, I liked Anton Yelchin as
Kyle Reese, and Sam Worthington is passable as the half Terminator half man guy.
He’s pretty bland, but I didn’t hate him.
Some of the visual effects are pretty cool, some of the action is ok, and I really like
the premise of setting a Terminator movie in the middle of the war with the machines.
We’ve seen John Connor’s mother, John Connor’s lieutenants, and John Connor getting
protected for this big war, so it’s a cool idea to actually see the war itself.
And the main good thing I can say about this is really that onset Christian Bale rant.
Which is genuinely hilarious, and I’ve started quoting it almost everyday.
*clip*.
Besides that though, this movie sucks.
There are a lot of little things that are wrong with this, there are plot holes, it’s
a PG-13 Terminator movie, CGI Arnold is pretty bad, there’s virtually no color in the movie,
the directing is not very good.
But the main problem I had with this was that it was just really boring, and very forgettable.
I only kind of remember what happened because I watched this a few days ago, and even now
I’m starting to forget it.
The writing is really bad, the movie’s pacing and editing is horrible, like it feels very
disjointed in a lot of parts.
It’s also just really stupid in a lot of parts, like that whole scene on the bridge,
and all together this just doesn’t feel at all like a Terminator movie.
Although I guess maybe it wasn’t trying to.
Sidenote, this movie also makes Terminators seem either way too overpowered or way too
weak and useless.
Like I know these are earlier models, but still, they kind of suck.
Also they don’t really try to kill people as much as you’d think they would.
They either shoot at the car instead of the people or they throw the person across the
room.
Like, you’re literally called a Terminator.
Terminate something!
So look, Terminator Salvation is my least favorite Terminator.
It has one or two things that I enjoyed, but besides that, it’s boring, it’s dumb,
it doesn’t make a lot of sense, the directing is bad, the acting is meh, and it’s thoroughly
forgettable.
Even Arnold hates this!
*clip* I’m gonna give Terminator: Salvation a 3.5/10.
Terminator: Genisys So now we’ve finally come to Terminator
Genisys.
Genysice.
Geny-cease.
Geni.
Jenny.
*JENNAY!* Whatever.
I actually reviewed this movie when it came out a little over a year ago, and after a
recent rewatch, some of my opinions have stayed the same and some have changed.
Ok, what did I like.
Really only three main things.
Arnold, JK Simmons and the premise.
When time travel is involved, the idea of just completely messing with a universe's
timeline really interests me.
The Terminator timeline is already so screwed up that they might as well have some fun with
it.
And the first half hour of this movie, while it still isn’t great, it had some potential.
Going into this, I wasn’t looking for the next T2, at this point in the franchise I
was just looking for some quick entertainment.
And the first half hour kind of has that.
It’s really dumb, but it’s kind of dumb fun.
It kind of meshes the two best Terminator movies at the start with the T-1000 in 1984,
it has Arnold fighting Arnold, which is pretty awesome.
If the whole movie could’ve been like that, then it would’ve been a really stupid, kind
of enjoyable, over-the-top entertaining movie for me.
Arnold is great again as the Terminator, it’s undeniably just fun to see him back in the
role.
And JK Simmons is the best.
Again, I love that guy in whatever he’s in, one of my favorites.
*time traveling robots*.
Ok.
Now everything else.
The rest of the cast ranges from meh to pretty bad.
Emilia Clarke, who’s been great in other stuff, and Jai Courtney, who’s….been in
other stuff, they’re both not very good here.
And they don’t really have any chemistry.
*clip “holding onto you, I didn’t say it did”* Jason Clarke is fine as John Connor.
The idea of John Connor becoming a Terminator is interesting, he’s kind of like a nano-bot
TX type thing, but they don’t really do anything with it and it doesn’t help that
it was spoiled in the trailers.
There are other things that are bad about this, the spelling of “Genisys,” the fact
that it’s rated PG-13, the not-so-great special effects and action, the forced in
social commentary, but by far the worst thing about this movie is the plot.
It is so unnecessarily convoluted, dumb, and inconsistent.
When I said earlier that I like the idea of messing with the timeline, that’s really
just when you acknowledge that hey, this is kind of ridiculous, let’s just go with it
and hope we get some cool new alternate timelines and scenarios out of it.
But that doesn’t work when you get so bogged down in these specifics.
All this stuff with Kyle Reese seeing future past alternate dimension flashbacks or whatever,
what is that?
And there are so many weird plot holes that come from this.
If the T-800 from Terminator 2 looks the same, then why doesn’t the T-1000.
If Kyle Reese is sent back to 1984 and in 1984 he never has sex with Sarah, then how
does John Connor exist in this timeline.
*you won’t exist, says who* Says me!
*we can stop Judgement Day from happening* But I thought the whole point of this franchise
was that you can’t stop Judgement Day from happening.
It’s inevitable.
Then there’s the whole Skynet thing, which is also a bit confusing.
So Skynet is actually a person, who is Doctor Who, and Genisys, which is also Skynet, is
this little hologram thing.
Maybe that’s just a physical representation of Genisys, I don’t know.
So Skynet is Genisys, and Skynet is Doctor Who, and Genisys is also this hologram thing,
which is also Skynet, which is also John Connor, and at this point this movie just feels like
a giant bloated mess.
Even if there is some explanation for this, it is not presented well or at all in the
film, and what should’ve just had a simple, dumb plot to put some cool action on ends
up leaving a lot of unanswered questions and being very confusing.
So look, I don’t think Terminator: Genisys is a great movie.
In fact, I don’t think it’s a good movie.
There are pockets of entertainment throughout, especially at the start, but some interesting
ideas are totally squashed by mediocre performances and a really stupid plot.
I’m now gonna give Terminator: Genisys a 4/10.
And yes, my ratings can change over time the more I think about or watch a movie.
So those were my thoughts on the Terminator movies.
Which is your favorite?
Or rank them from best to worst in the comments below.
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.