Sci-fi franchise reset that grafts a new storyline onto the 1984 original tale of a murderous cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back through time to kill Sarah Connor, eventual mother of the revolution against our future machine overlords. The result looks like, oh I dunno, a 67-year-old skinjacket sagging off the skull-plate of an outdated T-800 Terminator. It strives mightily to make up what it lacks in humanity (leads Jai Courtney and Emilia Clarke are almost as mechanical as the actual robots) with jokes, bad rom-com dynamics, and a great deal of punching and shooting. There's some nifty time-travel talk, some brief bits about fate vs. freedom, and a half-hearted attempt to connect the danger of anti-human AI to our increased entanglement with technology. But the film knows that what it's really selling is nostalgia: for Arnold's first, gigantic appearance; for the liquid-metal menace of Terminator 2's T-1000; for the time-loop love of Sarah and Reese. Everything else is talking and explosions. With J.K. Simmons as welcome, underplayed comic relief. (2015) — Matthew Lickona
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