It’s been 24 years since we’ve had a truly great Terminator movie – though we did have a terrific, albeit short-lived TV series a few years back – and unfortunately, that doesn’t change with Terminator Genisys

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While the new film -- which comes from director Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones, Thor: The Dark World) -- offers a pretty dramatic alternate reality scenario, this is hardly the first time the convoluted Terminator franchise has seen things change from what we knew to be true. Here though, that’s a specific plot point from the get go, as Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) travels back to 1984 to save Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), only to find the situation incredibly different than he expected. Instead of a nondescript waitress, Sarah is already a hardened, battle-ready warrior, trained since childhood by a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course). Well aware of the entire scenario in the future, Sarah is determined to stop Skynet once and for all (yep, again!), with a plan involving time traveling to yet another era – though that trip doesn’t go as planned, in more ways than one.It's good to see that Genisys doesn’t specifically copy the formula from the first three Terminators – while there are obviously still robots trying to kill Sarah and Kyle, it’s not exactly the same scenario, and the three different time frames the movie takes place in enlivens the proceedings. The early scenes also are innately fun in terms of using our familiarity with the first Terminator film to fuel the story. The extended opening credits show us, for the first time, the lead-up to both the original T-800 and Kyle being sent back to 1984, and the moments right before their appearance in the first movie. And as the trailers indicate, specific scenes from The Terminator are recreated, but with a twist, as things don’t go as Kyle (or we) expect in his encounters.However, the movie, written by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, never really comes into its own. There are a lot of obvious references to the original and several to Terminator 2 peppered through the movie and what feels like veiled nods to events and reveals from Terminator 3, Terminator Salvation and even, intentional or not, to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (when Kyle and Sarah time travel together, where they end up feels very similar to a scene from that show). These are amusing, sure, but at times pretty extraneous – it’s nice to see Miles Dyson again (here played by Courtney B. Vance), but his inclusion is ultimately inconsequential. He’s there for us to go, “Cool, Miles Dyson!” And then he doesn’t actually do anything.J.K. Simmons also pops up in a pretty thankless, goofy role, as someone with a specific reason to believe the seemingly crazy things Sarah and Kyle are claiming. Considering his screen time, you’d think his character would be more meaningful, but ultimately, he could easily be cut from the film, which is a shame, considering Simmons' talent.As for the leads, it’s a mixed bag. Schwarzenegger is right back at home as the Terminator. The film gives an in-universe explanation for why he’s aged (the living tissue is truly living and goes through the aging process, you see) and he basically is playing a “what if?” version of his T2 incarnation – a father figure Terminator, who has a bond with Sarah. Yeah, it’s pretty goofy that she calls him “Pops”, but hey, it’s basically using what Terminator 2 already established as far as what a “Good” Terminator could be to the Connor family. More importantly, Arnold is good old Arnold - stoic and determined as the T-800, and ready to fight to the death, with Schwarzenegger still knowing how to give off just the right attitude in the role. The movie is pretty heavy handed in terms of acknowledging the action star's age though, with the Terminator saying he's "old but not obsolete" twice in the same scene.Clarke and Courtney meanwhile have the difficult job of stepping into roles defined by other actors in very famous movies - and this is no mere “Here’s your new James Bond/Batman” style reboot, but a movie literally meant to use the existing mythology and background to drive the story. Courtney is specifically playing the same exact Kyle Reese Michael Biehn played. And while the story calls for Sarah to be very changed from her previous 1984 incarnation, it’s obvious the idea is that thanks to the altered timeline, she is already the T2, badass Sarah so memorably embodied by Linda Hamilton.Jai Courtney has become a bit of a punching bag for many, particularly since his role in the utterly dreadful A Good Day to Die Hard. I don’t agree with those that say he himself is a terrible actor (he just happened to get his big film break in a terrible movie), but I’ll damn him with faint praise by saying he’s fine, but often dull. He’s lacking the grit we expect from Kyle Reese and while he has some nicely played earnest moments a couple of times, he never really makes the role his own.Unfortunately, and more notably, Emilia Clarke is simply miscast. On Game of Thrones, she has proven she can play someone with a tough, fierce nature, to be sure. But this is Sarah Freaking Connor – the soldier version we all loved in T2. Part of it is simply Clarke’s youthful looks (which seem even more overt here – as though she were playing a 16-year old Sarah), but much of it is her performance too. She just doesn’t have the right presence for Sarah and it hurts a lot of would-be impressive moments when you just can’t quite buy into her in the role.As John Connor, Jason Clarke has a good rapport with Courtney in the film’s opening, though things get more problematic after that. I’m going to delve into spoiler territory here, but feel it’s on the table, since the movie’s trailers and posters have been so blatant with this reveal, though feel free to skip ahead a paragraph (and the trailer embedded below) if you’ve somehow avoided this content.So yes, John himself both travels into the past and has been transformed into a new Terminator. The idea of the adult John traveling back for the first time is interesting and allows for an offbeat family reunion, but John’s transformation is never fully explored, in terms of how much he’s changed psychologically and what he feels about the situation. It leaves Clarke without much to do in the film's second half beyond play his part in the action scenes and weakens what could have been a really fascinating, upsetting change.Doctor Who's Matt Smith brings some menace in a smaller but important role, while Byung-hun Lee (G.I. Joe) is very compelling as a new T-1000. In fact, some of the film’s best action scenes involve the T-1000, who remains an inventive, threatening movie villain. I actually found myself wishing Lee was in more of the movie, because he, and the still-exciting T-1000 morphing abilities, brings some of the most genuine thrills to it.