Terminator: Genisys (3D)

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney, Jason Clarke, J K Simmons, Matt Smith, Courtney B Vance, Byung-hun Lee, Sandrine Holt

Director: Alan Taylor

As long as you don't try to make any sense out of this latest episode of a franchise seemingly as indestructible as the Terminator himself, you're on firmer ground than any of the characters: this is a constantly exciting, expensive-looking romp careering crazily along, with only the occasional talking-heads interlude, in which one can never tell when one of the characters might suddenly turn into a cyborg or terminator.

The story looks quite ingenious if you could only unravel it, with action switching from the future to the past and back, even giving Schwarzenegger's now-protective Terminator the chance, courtesy cinema magic, to battle his younger self.

Courtney is a somewhat immobile hero while Emilia Clarke's Sarah Connor looks too tiny to be rushing around in low-cut tops wielding all those heavy-duty weapons. Jason Clarke is her son John, who plays a key role in that unfathomable plot about machines finally being bested by humans, but having some secret weapons up their robotic sleeves.

Still, all in all it's Arnie we go to watch in these things and the old Teuton is in great form with a string of poker-faced one-liners (including, of course, a reprise of 'I'll be back!') and even the odd touching moment. J K Simmons also scores as an elderly ex-cop scarcely believing how what he sees in 2017 relates to 1984.

There's lots of noisy action with a new array of death-dealing weapons, dodged by the characters in between ducking under the falling masonry. For sure they'll be back.

David Quinlan

USA 2015. UK Distributor: Paramount. Colour by Fotokem/Prints by Technicolor.
122 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 30 Jun 2015