TERMINATOR: GENISYS

Hollywood is fond of remakes and , and they are also fond of inviting actors from former movies to appear in current ones to evoke past memories or to provide a sense of humour. The first 4 Terminator movies were screened in 1984, 1991, 2003 and 2009 respectively.

This latest movie set in 2029 wasn't so much about John Connor, leader of the resistance against the machines, but focused more on the relationship between his parents Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor. Saved by John Connor as a child, Kyle was raised to join the resistance in the fight against the Skynet and its machines. The resistance failed to destroy Skynet and Kyle volunteered to be sent back in a time machine to 1984 to protect a young Sarah Connor from harm. Thereafter, the characters were originally planned to be sent to 1997 to change the events but instead moved forward to 2017 to stop the launch of a new global operating system known as the Genisys, which was supposedly Skynet.

Well, this movie was action-packed but it was a tad too confusing for me as they seemed to shuttle between different timelines which altered past and future events. Jason Clarke who played John was second fiddle to Emilia Clarke's Sarah and Jai Courtney's Kyle. Arnold Schwarzenegger reprised his roles as the terminator machines T-800 and T-800 (model 101) and he went from young to old through the times. There were two scenes of Kyle going all naked for the time travel and there was the famous Arnie naked scene as well and his deadpan looks and corny "I'll be back" phrase. Lee Byung-hun seemed to be Hollywood's favourite Asian or Korean actor to play similar roles as the villain (e.g. in the G.I. Joe movies) or killer machine in this as T-1000.

At the end of the movie, there was an easter egg segment, which hinted at a possible sequel.

Arnie as T-800 (model 101) in a rare Kodak moment

Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese

John Connor who was infected by Skynet in the future

T-1000 the killer machine

Kyle and John

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

I was looking forward to watch this movie but I must say I was disappointed by it. Starring Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell and so on, it continues from the 2011 movie "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" starring Andy Serkis and James Franco.

It was quite a long movie and the story took place in San Francisco, ten years after the Simian Flu Virus that escaped from a research facility following the first movie spread throughout the world. Caesar, the leader of the Apes, and his community had not seen humans since two winters ago and thought all of mankind perished until they came across a few human survivors led by Jason Clarke's Malcolm. The storyline was weak and didn't quite pick up after that and it was a letdown all the way to the end, even with Andy Serkis and Gary Oldman around.

The ending was once again open-ended, possibly as a lead up to any possible sequel. However, judging from this movie, I doubt the box-office takings would be optimistic enough to warrant a continuation of the this movie. Thank goodness James Franco didn't act in this movie.

Andy Serkis's Caesar, leader of the Apes

Koba, the ape who only learnt hate from the humans

Malcom and his team in search of the dam to restore power to the city

Malcolm

a visibly older Keri Russell of "Felicity" fame as Ellie