Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The plot of Terminator Genisys basically revolves around John Connor (Jason Clarke) sending Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to save John's mother Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke, no relation in real life to Jason Clarke). Sounds pretty familiar to us Terminator fans, right? What Genisys does is builds on the plots in the previous films by keeping the main plot similar to the first movie, but having Kyle meet with an altered timeline in 1984. This Sarah is much different from the Sarah he was expecting (and much different from the Sarah we saw in the original film) in that she's already a bad-A and knows all about Kyle being sent back to save her and the Resistance and the war against the machines. In fact, she's been being trained by the reprogrammed T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) for many years prior to Kyle showing up. You know in Back to the Future 2 when Marty goes back to 1955 Hill Valley for the almanac and you see the other Marty (from the first Back to the Future) trying to do his thing and get his parents back together? So you have a new movie but still get to see events from the first movie again, like the Enchantment Under the Sea dance scenes? Every time I watch BTTF2, getting to revisit and experience that scene from a different perspective than the first movie makes me so excited, and Terminator Genisys made me feel that same way at times. I've seen all of the Terminator movies multiple times, mostly because my husband is a huge fan of the franchise. They're all enjoyable to an extent (some more than others), but, to be honest, it's been a couple of years since I've watched the previous movies. Even without having seen the other movies in the series recently, I still enjoyed Genisys and have to say that I don't think it's necessary to have seen the previous films recently, or at all. That being said, I do think it could be beneficial and add to your experience to watch or rewatch them before seeing Genisys. The parts about this film that I thought were the most fun were when we got to revisit scenes or hear similar lines from the previous films. It brought the nostalgia factor way up for me, which I loved. There were some things I missed that I didn't realize were nods back to previous films in the series, until my husband leaned over and whispered to me about them, so it doesn't hurt to rewatch the series beforehand, or at least the first two. Again, not necessary, but could amp up your enjoyment. Bottom line - I've always enjoyed science fiction and time travel movies, and this one was a winner in my book. I honestly thought this movie was great. It was action-packed but also pretty funny. It was nostalgic while still being inventive and feeling fresh. I ended up enjoying it way more than I expected and had a really fun time.