With his time as the "Governator" over, this reboot of James Cameron's killer machines franchise sees the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger who, while grey-haired and less fearsome, is as wooden an actor as he ever was. For those who weren't kids when Cameron's 1984 originals came out and don't remember its terrible hair, B-movie special effects and the wonderfully gaudy nightclub Techno Noir, director Alan Taylor's attempt to restart the franchise might provide standard blockbuster satisfaction, complete with third-rate one-liners, a scene in which 1984 Arnie gets to battle his 2015 "old but not obsolete" version and a plot that makes as much sense as an ANC cabinet briefing.But for those who love Cameron's original and its 1991 follow-up, this is a lazy, self-referential, by-the-numbers $170-million waste of time that quickly becomes a parody of the franchise rather than a welcome kick in the ass .As far as the plot goes, once again a robot from the future is sent by an evil computer program called Skynet to destroy Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) so as to ensure that John Connor (Jason Clarke) will not be born and save humanity. Connor sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to save his mother but - after a five-minute sequence directly cribbed from the opening of the original film- things don't pan out as they're supposed to. With the help of "Pops" (Schwarzenegger), Sarah's besotted substitute father-robot-guardian, Kyle and Sarah take their clothes off, get in a time machine and transport themselves to 2017, where they're tasked with destroying an operating system named Genisys that will put the smartphone-obsessed citizens of Earth firmly under the control of Skynet. Then things get so ridiculously complicated that the scriptwriters are forced to use Arnie to explain the scientific intricacies of the time-travel plot, a joke that wears thin pretty quickly.Schwarzenegger's acting is not just robotic but almost catatonic with his repeated delivery of a few tiresome and predictable catch-phrases.The effects may be better but Taylor takes almost two hours to get to the end of his overblown showcase for the worst excesses of the 21st century. All Cameron needed 31 years ago was just over 100 minutes, a few mullets and a stop-motion tin-can robot with cheesy lasers in its eyes.Like the recent attempts to remake Total Recall and Robocop, Terminator Genisys is a very expensive reminder of why some films, like some 1980s action stars, should be left alone to go grey, grow a belly and make the occasional variety show appearance.What others say'Terminator: Genisys' feels like a VHS cassette that's been rewound and recorded over for 21 years. It's haunted by ghosts of old movies. Amy Nicholson, LA Weekly.Schwarzenegger, 67, is, yes, back, because while the series thrill is lamentably long gone, franchises now apparently last forever. Manohla Dargis, New York Times'Genisys' goes back to what made the franchise work in the first place: not the machine inside the man, but vice versa. Michael O' Sullivan, Washington Post..