No, Arnold may have been my least favourite thing in this film. He was a parody once again.
I've been trying to post more thoughts on the film but it's been an exercise in futility all yesterday and today.
Ever since T3 his "robotic" personality when he portays the character bugs me. It feels
forced and really wooden. The "theoretically speaking" **** bugged the hell out of me. He doesn't even do the "scanning" right like in the first two.
I know in T2, he talked like a robot. "Mimetic polyalloy", "tactically dangerous", "affirmative", etc. but it always felt natural, you know what I mean? The analytical/computer talk wasn't a point of humor, even when John would point it out. With T3 and Genisys it feels like we're supposed to be laughing at him. The difference between Arnold's performances in the Cameron films vs. the other two are light and day in my opinion. In the first two, those T-800s actually feel like cool characters to me. "Nothing clean, right" or "wrong" don't
feel awkward. Even when Uncle Bob is saying "chill out . . . **** was", it doesn't seem cringe worthy.
I'm not saying that his performances in the first two are some avan grade, Shakespearean caliber acting, but it does feel natural. That smile Uncle Bob cracks at when he's holding be minigun in the weapons cache or the sly "trust me" with the twinkle in his eye at Cyberdyne is
earned because of what the audience has invested with the characters. The thumbs up at the end too. "Pops" had none of that. It really feels like the filmmakers saw that T2 deleted scene and mimicked it like "see, see, remember that from T2" without really having understood it.
I mean come on, I don't want to be cynical here, but Uncle Bob learns these human gestures in what, the span of 24 to 48 hours and goes from ultimate stoic, steely eyed machine you don't want to **** with,
to a subtle, **** eating grin that tells John and the audience "hey, it's me", "I got this", "don't worry".
There's an actual pay off. With Pops, the stupid robo-grin THREE friggin times is at the expense of the character. So for a decade, Pops never learned to perfect a smile? Huh? He still talks like a ****ing idiot with terms like "mating", and "obsolete"? I also hated the SFX, every time he moved or made a facial expression it made that cutesy "robot" sound. You know what I'm talking about. Cameron never did that with his Terminator films. There was humor but it was subtle, it was earned, it felt
real. In Genisys Arnold is just strutting around like a literal big lug, looking the same in every scene and saying the same lines. It makes me wonder if he even remembers or understood the original intentions with the first two films or even cares. In those two, yeah, it might not have been nuanced or method acting, but he seemed sincere.
