Four good reasons I'm no longer a Terminator fangirl

What happens when you're looking at the mother of dragons and the big daddy of robots on one exploding, three-dimensional screen?

I was looking for alchemy when I went to watch Terminator Genisys. After all, it has everyone's favourite badass motherly figure, Emilia Clarke, also the Mother of Dragons on the (wildly) popular HBO TV Series, Game of Thrones, playing another badass mom here: Sarah Connor. It also has my all-hands-down favourite action hero ever, Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing the Big Daddy of robots/cyborgs, the Terminator T-800. [More reference to parental figures: The Terminator is called pops here.] Disclaimer: this is mostly spoiler free. Don't hate me, though, if you didn't watch the trailer. But what I got was a weird Oedipal complex, a lame love triangle, and not even good action.

1. A face-off between artificial, hybrid intelligence versus humanity. Oh, yawn:

"Why won't you listen to me", the robotic-cyborg antagonist screams at Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese. "Because we're human!" the humans reply. I do get goosebumps every time I hear this line. As per Hollywood big budget script - movies like Equilibrium, The War of the Worlds, Prometheus, et al - we are irrepressible, unputdownable, and pretty darn incorrigible as well, because we're human.

We're the deviants who will not give up or surrender to evil forces. In the face of temptation or torture, we may yield our bodies, but not our spirits. Yes, I get it. This is Hollywood gold right there. But being a (Nolan-esque) Batman/Dark Knight fangirl, my incorrigible, hard, little heart yearns for a more sophisticated villain. One who says more than "oh you stupid humans", and goes beyond dead-eyed, straight-faced human annihilation. If we're talking about human consciousness, animalistic consciousness, or artificial consciousness, I want more richness and depth. I want better backstories. I want human failings and greed in artificial machines, not just golden human-soul versus deadpan machine tropes.

Also, I want better writing. "Are you, you?" Sarah Connor asks at one instance, to the Terminator, who could also be an evil shape-changing, intestine-wrenching bot in disguise.

2. An apocalypse which looks a lot like our real world:

I have to say this: There are many, many apocalyptic movies out there. There are zombie apocalypses, machine/artificial intelligence-led apocalypses, disease-led apocalypses, alien-led apocalypses, and occasionally, ape-led apocalypses. But am I the only one who feels that post-apocalypytic scenarios look too much like our own world today? The flashbacks to how the world used to be in these movies look less and less with our inhabited world now - beaches, with clean sweeps of sand (not a single plastic bottle there), acres of rolling forest, with mist conveniently curving into the frame (hard to see now, without transmission lines breaking up the line of vision/point of view), and cabins in the wood, with acres of parking (the cabins exist, but parking is definitely a problem now). When I watched Interstellar, I thought it was like, "Dust storm! North India in June! Rise in asthma in Delhi! The air is a gas-chamber!". The much condescended shanties of Total Recall (the 2012, reboot, which though technically wasn't an apocalyptic movie) are not too different from our cities today. I really want to see a movie now which has an apocalypse which doesn't remind me so creepily of our real world today. Or, we could clean up our real world. I think realistically, and a tad cynically, the former could be achieved more easily.

3. Why won't you use your 3D? And why no good car chases, dammit?

I'm so done with 3D movies which won't use their 3D. What are we wearing those yucky, smeared/flimsy glasses for? Not just to see the "depth" in the credit rolls!

I have to say at this point that I am a diehard fan of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Granted I was a wee child when I first watched it, but I still think it's the best action movie I've ever seen. The foreboding, the car chases, the physical running, and the heart-thumping-slipping-on-the-hospital-floor-and-making off with a Terminator still give me goosebumps. That was good action, with a hard, cold edge of menace. Not so for Genisys. Theoretically, we've come so far with 3D. Imagine the time of Chota Chetan where watching 3D was like just watching a TV screen with a shaken up antenna, to the times of James Cameron's gorgeous 3D in Avatar. And then, Hollywood just overdid the damn 3D, over-budgeted, rode the fad, and robbed the 3D of its artistic power, by the time of Clash of the Titans (even Liam Neeson in a shiny silver outfit couldn't make the 3D memorable). Sadly, Genisys follows suit.

There's so much that could be done with an "older, not obsolete" Arnold versus bad bots in three-dimensions. But the 3D is underutilised and will give you a headache. Like the Avengers movies, there are so many gun shots/explosions that you can't keep track, don't want to keep track, and slip into mind-numbness. There isn't even one good car chase in this movie. No heart-pumping running, no comprehensible death-is-near foreboding. Hollywood, just stop with the 3D, will you. Go stand in a corner, and rework action from the worm's eye view.

4. Now, the good part:

In four words: Silverfox Arnold in leather. Arnie's got so much swag, and the T-800 will still melt your heart, and packs a mean punch. He's the only good thing about this movie, and damn does he look good in silver hair and a fake human smile (silver-haired now, since he's "old, not obsolete"). If you watch this movie just to see the Governator, packing a punch, throwing a kick, and flashing the famous Terminator thumbs-up in the few solo scenes he has, I'll forget that you ever read this review!