Saw it last night.
Nowhere near as bad as what people/critics have been saying.
If you look at it from an alternate universe point of view, it's pretty good. I think people were mostly complaining because they treated it as if it was replacing T1/T2.
As a standalone film, there's only very few things I can complain about:
- It didn't necessarily "feel" like a Terminator film... The first 40 minutes did, then it kind of jumped ship.
- Cheap laughs and "PG13" rating (M in Australia). I understand why Hollywood do that nowadays, because money-hungry, greedy bastards. Film would have been a lot better with Arnie butt shots (no homo) and blood. Cheap laughs have taken over the world of cinema as it appeals to today's generation, unfortunately. I did chuckle though as some of it was executed pretty well.
- CGI. The helicopter scene was just crap. Compared to the helicopter scene in T2, Genisys was absolutely horrible when it came to special FX.
Other than that, it was very enjoyable.
Emilia Clarke is definitely no Linda Hamilton, but Jai Courtney was nowhere near as bad as I expected him to be (*cough* Godzilla *cough*).
***SPOILER ALERT***
John Connor's explanation of being "exiles in time" is a fair point and I generously let that "plot hole" (if you could call it that) slide because of that.
Would watch again. Much better than T3 and Salvation. Has nothing on T1 and T2 but it shouldn't necessarily be compared to the first two films because of reasons above.