Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) - Spectacular stunts in twisty actioner

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+ Best Action Movie of the Year

The stars of Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation light up this cool poster

Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July (1989)) is back for the 5h chapter in the Mission: Impossible franchise, this time written and directed by New Jerseyite master filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher (2012)) with story by Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3 (2013)).

Following dramatic events in recent cases, the US government decides to shut down the IMF, just as Ethan Hunt & Co. are getting near to a rogue pan-national terror organization of former agents, known as The Syndicate.

After Brad Bird's excellent 4th film in the M:I franchise, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), which competed with John Woo's Mission: Impossible II (2000) in being the best in the series, I went to the new film with some trepidation. - Could it live up to the preceding film?
Rogue Nation's opening scene is perhaps the film's greatest and a perfect hook: On a dull, flat field in Belarus, a high-tension situation surrounding a shipment of missiles on a plane taking off arises. As many will know, who have read snippets of M:I 5 related stories this past year, the situation ends up with Cruise hanging on the outside of the Airbus A400M Atlas as it takes off. The fact that we know that Cruise actually did this, suspended on the plane up to 5,000 feet in the air, makes the perfectly edited scene a giant thrill. He is our substitute in the movie; we are Cruise, and we can, thank goodness, 'perform' his feats with him on a safe distance from our theater seats. Thank God for Tom Cruise! - The royal opening naturally gets paired with Lalo Schifrin's classic, great theme, which composer Joe Kraemer (The Way of the Gun (2000)) weaves into his own suspenseful score at pivotal points in the film.
Rogue Nation continues as a strong action spy movie with phenomenal segments in and around the opera in Vienna, (Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson (Hercules (2014)) also did their own jump stunt from the roof of the building there); in Morocco, where Cruise's much publicized 6 minute dive scene, which he reportedly did for real without edits, plays out, (though it luckily doesn't last 6 minutes), followed by one of the most exciting chase scenes in years (also with Cruise doing much of his own driving); and later in London. All the spectacular sequences are infused with several state-of-the-art gadgets and beautiful photography by the great Robert Elswit (There Will Be Blood (2007)).

Rebecca Ferguson and Tom Cruise dish out some serious ass-whooping, (and take some themselves as well) in Christopher McQuarrie's masterful Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Skeptics have frowned, because Cruise isn't 25 anymore, (he recently turned 53), and because this is # 5 in a franchise. Also, - up to you which of the above mentioned stunt escapades you choose to believe. Even Cruise obviously can't do this forever. (I just hope he doesn't kill himself doing one of these films one day. (The most dangerous thing that happened during filming of Rogue Nation seems to have been that he was nearly hit by a double-decker bus in London.)) But the fact is that he just did it again, and probably better than he ever has before in a major action movie. A giant spy action movie of today simply doesn't get any better than this.
Cruise leads a film like no-one else around, and this one just plays on all levels:
Behind him is an exciting cast: Simon Pegg (Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)) has a bigger part now and lends his humanity and a first-rate performance to the film. Jeremy Renner (12 and Holding (2005)) continues as a more skeptical part of Hunt's team, and Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible (1996)) is fun to have back after being gone in the previous film. Cool, strong and very sexy Swede Ferguson has a juicy part as a capable woman walking a thin line; Tom Hollander (Gosford Park (2001)) is great as the British PM; Alec Baldwin (Aloha (2015)) ditto as tight-assed, but apparently not very dangerous, CIA director, Jens Hultén (Skyfall (2012)) is another punchy Swede; and other heavies are icy Brits Sean Harris (Deliver Us from Evil (2014)), who looks and sounds like a nasty child molester as the great, main villain here, and Simon McBurney (The Theory of Everything (2014)) as the deceitful MI6 director.
Crucially, the story is smart, it keeps moving with twists and turns along the way, and is even bumped by subtle references to such diverse elements as the Faust legend, SS Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)), the Turandot opera, Casablanca (1942) and the missing Malaysian Airlines MH370 airplane.
A few years later and Rogue Nation has aged a bit, not least because one holds it up against Cruise/McQuarrie's even better follow-up, Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018), and Cruise's complete triumph in Top Gun: Maverick (2022).

Related posts:

Christopher McQuarrie: 2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Jack Reacher (2012) - Highly entertaining, dark hero-vehicle for Tom Cruise (with Cruise) 
Mission: Impossible franchise: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) - Cruise and Bird's phenomenal action spectacle

Hang on, it's Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation!

Watch the trailer for the film here - this is what cinemas are there for, so go see this movie in a CI-NE-MA!

Cost.: 150 mil. $
Box office: Just opened, - not public yet
= Uncertainty
[But if there's any justice in the world, M:I 5 is gonna exceed expectations and make a giant megabuck. A recent, detrimental Scientology documentary is feared to have some sway with American audiences set against Cruise, but Film Excess doubts that this could really have serious impact on the 'Cruise control', which will settle across global box office this weekend. The film will not open in China, a key market, until September 8th. If possible, go see it in IMAX, in which the film is even more amazing.]

What do you think of Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation?

Dance of the Dead (2005) - Hooper's ugly Masters of Horror nonsense

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+ 3rd Worst Movie of the Year

This not exactly inspirational DVD cover for Tobe Hooper's Dance of the Dead speaks volumes of the product it advertises

QUICK REVIEW:

In a post-apocalyptic future, youths steal the blood of pedestrians and sell it to a club owner, who makes shows in which the dead are shot full of electricity, so that they dance.

Dance of the Dead is the 3rd entry in the first season of Mick Garris' (The Shining (1997), TV-miniseries) horror TV movie series Masters of Horror (2005-06). It is the first and pretty disappointing entry by horror legend/master filmmaker Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)), his other entry being The Damned Thing (2006). It is written by Richard Christian Matheson (Loose Cannons (1990)), based on a 1954 short story by his father Richard Matheson (I Am Legend (1954)).
The film is cut and filmed as unattractively as possible, it seems, and the content is not only revolting but also, crucially, devoid of charm or any decipherable ideas or intent. Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street (1954)) plays the club's emcee, who has an incredible amount of diabolical scenes. - Englund really should try to pursue different parts, if at all possible.
Music by Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan (Spun (2002)) can't save this. - Dance of the Dead is a ridiculous turkey of a movie.

Related posts:
 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
Masters of Horror: Chocolate (2005) - Flavors, visions and eroticism in Garris' TV movie thriller
Deer Woman (2005) - Landis and son's solid Masters of Horror entry 
Cigarette Burns (2005) - Carpenter burns out in weird, tiresome TV movie 

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None
= Uncertainty
[But Showtime contracted Garris and his team of horror masters for a second season in which also Hooper contributed, which indicates that his first entry was good business.]

What do you think of Dance of the Dead?

I Walked with a Zombie (1943) or, Dark Island

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A chilling poster for Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie

A young, resourceful nurse gets hired in a job as a personal nurse for a woman on a plantation in the West Indies. As our nurse heroine learns more of the tragedy-torn family and the superstitious local population, she suspects that the woman's strange trance state might have an unmedical cause ...

I Walked with a Zombie is the second horror film from producer Val Lewton and great French director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People (1942), both) for RKO Radio Pictures.
The sensationalist title was forced upon the duo from the studio's executives and is not representative of the subtle, intelligent and nuanced movie they made. The film journeys to the tropic island along with its protagonist with a scientific mind, but finds itself caught up in the place's nasty cobwebs of decay and tragedy and probes the beliefs of the locals with an open mind. This progression on the part of both heroine and film as such is simultaneously fascinating and disturbing.
The script is layered and filled with great dialog, one of several fine works by the great German writer Curt Siodmak (The Wolf Man (1941)), co-writing with Ardel Wray (Isle of the Dead (1945)), who took over after Siodmak left. It is based on an American Weekly Magazine article by Inez Wallace, optioned by RKO, which Lewton disliked and therefore made the writers inspire the film's structure with Charlotte Brontë's classic novel Jane Eyre (1847) instead.
I Walked with a Zombie is one of the oldest zombie movies, (although preceded by pictures like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920), if you allow that it can count as a zombie film, and White Zombie (1932)), and SPOILER it does not include the meat-munching element that is essential to zombie movies of later decades.

The details:

The film appears in great condition on modern copies, and its slight but atmospheric and neat production stands out in J. Roy Hunt's (Syncopation (1942)) fine photography.
Among the cast, who all give dense performances, Frances Dee (Of Human Bondage (1934)) as Betsy the nurse and Tom Conway (Blood Orange (1953)) as her romantic interest, the gloomy Paul Holland, whose wife may be the victim of a local voodoo magic spell, should be singled out. They both drive the film forward without discords. 
Sir Lancelot (The Buccaneer (1958)), who was himself a musician from the West Indies, appears as the local calypso singer in the film and enjoyed quite a hit subsequently with the fateful Shame and Scandal in the Family, which he wrote for the film. It became a #1 hit in Australia, although Lancelot was sometimes deprived of his credit for it.
At just 69 minutes, I Walked with a Zombie is a condensed horror feature, but an oppressing, intriguing one in any case, and one that can be seen over and over again.

Watch the original trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[But following the surprise success of Lewton/Tourneur's preceding Cat People (1942), RKO decided to rent their follow-up out to theaters not on the flat rate that was customary for low budget genre films, but against a percentage payment, which was the norm for 'A pictures', (larger studio productions). This does not reveal, however, whether or not I Walked with a Zombie was also commercially successful, although it seems likely. The critics of its day seem to have spited it, and it has only since become reevaluated critically as the great film that it is.]

What do you think of I Walked with a Zombie?
What other films by Lewton, Tourneur and/or other cast and crew members would you recommend?

Deer Woman (2005) - Landis and son's solid Masters of Horror entry

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+ Best TV movie of the Year

Here's a reasonably well-made, presumably DVD cover for John Landis' Deer Woman

QUICK REVIEW:

Somewhere in Northern America, a beautiful woman is roaming bars, where she seduces men and beats them to death with her hoofs! A burned-out policeman now begins to investigate the murders despite the ridicule of his colleagues.

Deer Woman is the 7th TV movie episode of the first (of two) seasons of Mick Garris' (Sleepwalkers (1992)) Masters of Horror Showtime TV movie series. It is the first of two (the other one being Family (2006)) entries by Chicagoan master filmmaker John Landis (Blues Brothers (1980)).
Landis is a damn skilled director, which is why it is such a shame that his capacity as such has fizzled out since the 90's and apparently ended in some TV projects completely unworthy of him in recent years. Deer Woman, however, is a bright hour, (also literally, as it runs 57 minutes), in his latter years.
The film presents no real surprises despite its original 'monster', but the fact that Landis wrings an entertaining and in the end somewhat exciting film from the tongue-in-cheek-heavy story, which he devised together with his son Max Landis (Chronicle (2012)), is something of an achievement.
A lavish amount of self-irony as well as Brian Benben (Private Practice (2008-13)) giving a great performance in the lead contribute to making Deer Woman among the best entries in Masters of Horror.

Related reviews:


Masters of Horror: Chocolate (2005) - Flavors, visions and eroticism in Garris' TV movie thriller
Cigarette Burns (2005) - Carpenter burns out in weird, tiresome TV movie 
John Landis: 2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Coming to America (1988) - Landis and Murphy's second amusing but less well-constructed collaboration
The Twilight Zone (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
An American Werewolf in London (1981) - Landis' great, funny, scary wolf
The Blues Brothers (1980) - Try to sit still to this one!

Here's John Landis' Deer Woman's titular femme fatale, played by Brazilian beauty Cinthia Moura

Watch the trailer for the movie here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: None
= Uncertainty
[But though Masters of Horror's quality was wobbly at best, Showtime ordered a second run of the anthology series, indicating that it was good business.]

What do you think of Deer Woman?

The Departed (2006) - Scorsese's Boston-set wildcat of a capital letter Movie

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+ Best Boston Movie of the Year + Best Gangster Movie of the Year + Best Comeback Actor of the Year: Matt Damon + Best Remake of the Year + Best Ensemble of the Year: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alex Baldwin, Kevin Corrigan, James Badge Dale

Jack Nicholson lurks in the background behind the young leading men on this poster for Martin Scorsese's The Departed

QUICK REVIEW:

In Boston, Massachusetts, it isn't Italian Americans who control the city's criminal underbelly. Frank Costello does; an Irish crime king who has a guy on the inside of the city's police department, but who also has an 'infestation problem' of his own. In Boston you just have to deal with your problems...

Master filmmaker Martin Scorsese (Casino (1995)) does it again with The Departed; creates a unique crime blast of a movie. The Departed is a remake of Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs (2002), a very successful Hong Kong movie which got 2 sequels, written by William Monahan (Kingdom of Heaven (2005)), who won an Oscar for his adapted screenplay.
The movie offers juicy parts for an exciting ensemble cast that all bring their very best to the film. - And for once, at this stage in his career, Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting (1997)) also has a fully fledged part. - His star was back on the rise, after about 5 years of more or less dubious movies, with his performance in Departed.
The film features a cool music side; both lots of great source music and a great score by Howard Shore (Doubt (2008)). The Oscar-winning editing, by Scorsese regular Thelma Schoonmaker (Goodfellas (1990)), and Michael Ballhaus' (Air Force One (1997)) cinematography are unmatched. SPOILER Martin Sheen's (Apocalypse Now (1979)) death scene is very exciting, and the film's ending, in which nearly everyone 'departs', is great.
I only withhold the 6th ♥ from Departed because the characters, and especially Jack Nicholson's (The Shining (1980)) Frank Costello, seem at times exaggerated in an almost circus-like way. It is truly a great movie nevertheless.

Related posts:

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess  
Martin Scorsese: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - One helluva movie!  
Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011) - Stapleton's Corman doc. is among the year's best films (interview subject)
Hugo (2011) - Scorsese's critically acclaimed, magical 3D family adventure/financial disaster 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Boardwalk Empire - 1st season (2010) - Luxurious 1920's ensemble gangster treats  
The Aviator (2004) - The grand American biopic 
Casino (1995) - Scorsese's sumptuous Vegas gangster tale has the wingspan of a Greek tragedy   
The Age of Innocence (1993) or, Stayin' IN the Pants
Cape Fear (1991) - Scorsese adds lots of stuff to remake but loses the balance   

Martin Scorsese directing The Departed

Watch the totally kick-ass trailer for the movie here

Cost: 90 mil. $
Box office: 289.8 mil. $
= Big hit
[The Departed was shot on locations in Boston with interior scenes shot in New York. The film was highly anticipated and became one of Scorsese's biggest hits to date, both commercially and critically: Departed broke Scorsese's decades-long Oscar jinx and earned both Best Picture, Director as well as Adapted Screenplay and Editing Oscars. Mark Wahlberg (Ted 2 (2015)) was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Many have commented that Scorsese won for a lesser film than he has previously been nominated for. He has himself said that he won for Departed because it is his first movie "with a plot." It opened #1 in North America with 26.8 mil. $ and grossed 132.3 mil. $ there (46 % of the total gross).]

What do you think of The Departed?
Any thoughts on Scorsese and Co.'s Oscar wins for the film?

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) - Coppola goes for the jugular with unsubtle, overlong adaptation

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An alluring, highly detailed, gothic poster for Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula

QUICK REVIEW:

A count from Transylvania gets a young gentleman visitor in his castle, because he wants to purchase properties in London. He later arrives to the great city in a coffin and begins biting women there.

I wish master filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now (1979)) had made a really good Dracula, but I don't think he has. The film is written by James V. Hart (Muppet Treasure Island (1996)), adapting Bram Stoker's (The Mystery of the Sea (1902)) legendary 1897 novel.
With few exceptions, the film stays loyal to Stoker's novel. The greatest difference is that the film in no way pursues the art of suggestion, and that turns out to be a big shame in my mind. Coppola's Dracula is also too long, and I also surmise that it must be even harder to engage with for audiences who haven't read Stoker's novel.
More than one of the film's castings seem distinctive or odd, and some just don't work. Two do, however, stand out as well-integrated: Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight (2008)) as the count, and Keanu Reeves (John Wick (2014)) as the innocent Mr. Harker. Although the latter's performance in Dracula has been widely criticized and ridiculed, especially his attempt at a British accent in the part, I quite enjoy him in the film, which certainly doesn't fail because of him.

Related reviews:


Top 10: The best adaptations reviewed by Film Excess to date 
Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse Now (1979) redux version - The horror of war  
Dementia 13/The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) - Coppola's gothic AIP castle horror 

Watch the trailer for the film here

Cost: 40 mil. $
Box office: 215.8 mil. $
= Big hit
[Bram Stoker's Dracula became an impressively big hit both at home and abroad: It opened strong to a 30.5 mil. $ opening weekend in North America, where it grossed 82.5 mil. $ (38 % of the total gross) and won three Oscars: Best Costumes, Makeup and Sound Design. It was also nominated for Best Art Direction. It was the 15th highest grossing film in North America of the year and the 9th worldwide.]

What do you think of Bram Stoker's Dracula?

Down by Law (1986) - Jarmusch's jailbreak movie is an independent character gem

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One of the great posters for Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law

QUICK REVIEW:

Written and directed by Ohioan master filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)), Down by Law was his third feature, and it remains one of my favorites among his many great films.

Zack, Jack and the Italian Bob are all three innocently jailed in New Orleans. That is, Bob actually has killed a man, but it was not really his intention. Now, of course, they escape!

What is so attractive about Down by Law is also what sets it apart from so many of Jarmusch's other fine pictures: It is 100 % character-oriented. It never abandons its characters to reach for philosophical heights but keeps its focus on the interactions of the three fundamentally different men, brought together through incarceration: The ego-loner pimp Jack (John Lurie (Oz (2001-03))), the socially grunting Zack (Tom Waits (Short Cuts (1993))) and the simple man Bob (Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful/La Vita è Bella (1997))).
Benigni is hysterically funny, and Lurie and Waits are simply perfect as two seedy New Orleans characters.
Don't miss this magical gem in B/W, gorgeously shot by Robby Müller (Breaking the Waves (1996)).

Related reviews:

Jim Jarmusch: Broken Flowers (2005) - Hip search for son and self with Jarmusch and Murray
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) - Pleasant, precious vignette sit-down with some wonderful people    
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) - Whitaker serves ancient samurai justice in Jarmusch's cool treat   
Dead Man (1995) - Jarmusch's bold, poetic, rich Americana masterpiece 
Top 10: The best B/W movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

Roberto Benigni in loving embrace with Nicoletta Braschi, who would later become his wife in real life, in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law

Watch the trailer for this great film here

Cost: Estimated 1.1 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 4.5 mil. $
= Uncertainty
[But at least a big hit. The film, which also features two of Waits' songs from his album Rain Dogs, played in Cannes and received grandiloquent reviews en masse. It made 1.4 mil. $ in North America and 3.1 mil. $ in Germany. The film was a US-West-German co-production. Its final gross is unknown.]

What do you think of Down by Law?

Terminator Genisys (2015) - Franchise: Terminated!

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+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year

The main poster for Alan Taylor's Terminator Genisys presents Arnold Schwarzenegger and the fresh stars in a heated environment

Terminator 5 has landed, and what can we expect from it? - Not much, if we remember the terrible last entry, Terminator Salvation (2009), but Genisys' wowing trailer and the return of the mighty Arnold Schwarzenegger (Eraser (1996)) in the title role (after one film's absence) made me hope that a decent, new sequel had been devised.

Right hand to the resistance leader John Connor, Kyle Reese, is sent back to 1984 to protect Sarah Connor from the machines. But the past has changed. And so has the future!

After a lengthy, narrated beginning, Genisys takes us back to scenes from The Terminator (1984), which have been recreated, without Bill Paxton (Titanic (1997)), but now with two CGI-Arnolds battling, - which is truly not a very promising sight.
Byung-hun Lee (I Saw the Devil (2010)) is disappointingly quickly used and discarded again as a metallic villain, a throwback to Robert Patrick's bad guy in the franchise's best, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
In between action scenes, the characters try to answer each other's questions and clear up the soon overwhelmingly complicated and obscure plot. Genisys' story seems to erase everything that has happened in the Terminator universe previously! For fans this is, naturally, problematic. Especially because the Genisys plot doesn't seem to make much sense on its own. The past has been 'reset', we are informed. So has the future. ... SPOILER In the end, the terminator melts away as is customary, only to return a moment later, letting us know that he was merely 'upgraded.' - This is the level of the logics in Genisys, a foot-long baloney sandwich if I ever saw one.
It is written by Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander (2004)) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry (2011)), and directed by Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World (2013)).

Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to have unnaturally thick hair on this poster for Alan Taylor's Terminator Genisys

The nonsensical plot is accompanied by some, at their best, momentarily thrilling action scenes. But if compared to the action of Terminator, Terminator 2 or Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), the CGI-heavy action of Genisys falls way short of really impressing.
Jason Clarke (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)), the clenched-jaw actor who is fast losing my patience with him, here portrays John Connor, SPOILER who is now, suddenly, a seriously bad guy! I never understood why, and it was very displeasing to have that happen inexplicably to a character that has stood as a smart-mouthed hero in my mind for about two decades.
Next major problem: Jai Courtney (Jack Reacher (2012)) as Kyle Reese. This Australian meatball looks fine, but he has all the charisma of an ATM. Courtney is perhaps the least compelling shooting star actor around today. And for some reason, they cast him for a major part in Genisys.
British Emilia Clarke (Dom Hemmingway (2013)), on the other hand, brings a lot of zest and emotions to the Sara Connor character, and acquits herself well, although Linda Hamilton's shoes are considerable to try to fill out.
J. K. Simmons (Whiplash (2014)) is a breath of fresh, at times funny air, and Schwarzenegger still has charm and a very strong screen presence. - But he is at times made to look even older than he is, (which is soon 68!), with grey hair, (yes, robots age in Genisys ...) And you know an action movie has a problem, when you start to feel bad for its bad-ass hero, because he is an old guy who gets continually and viciously beaten up.
Terminator 5 brings nearly nothing new to the table; it instead clutters everything up that the franchise has created so far. The one new thing it develops, the Genisys system, a kind of connecting program that mirrors Skynet and wants to take over the planet, seems like it could have been interesting but is the one thing that doesn't get much attention.
- The Terminator universe is terminated!

Related posts:

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch the great trailer for the film here

Cost: 155 mil. $
Box office: 229.5 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say
[Genisys has underwhelmed in North America, where it debuted #3, behind Jurassic World and Inside Out, with a 42.4 mil. $ opening weekend and received generally bad reviews. But the film made #1 collectively abroad for one weekend. It doesn't look like it will heave enough tickets home to become a hit though, which also makes it less likely that two more proposed films will materialize.]

What do you think of Terminator Genisys?
Do you want to see more Terminator in the future, or do you, like Film Excess, consider the franchise terminated?