“I’m old but I’m not obsolete,” Arnold Schwarzenegger says of his return as the fearsome cyborg from the future in his new movie Terminator Genisys.
The line is taken from the movie, spoken by his robotic character, but applies equally well to the 67-year-old Austrian-born Hollywood actor and former governor of California.
Schwarzenegger told a June 19 Paris media conference promoting the movie that he was asked to reprise his most famous role a month after finishing his seven-year stint running California in January 2011.
“I was very, very excited to ‘be back’,” he said, putting his accented emphasis on what is now his trademark phrase.
Terminator Genisys is the fifth movie in the series that launched in 1984 with Schwarzenegger playing a killer cyborg sent to slay Sarah Connor, the woman who would become mother to a future resistance leader fighting the machines.
Schwarzenegger (who wasn’t in the last Terminator film that came out in 2009 because he was in governor mode) revisits the original 1984 timeframe thanks to some movie magic.
In it, he is an older Terminator battling the one he played back in 1984, when the original Terminator came out, a struggle made possible by the time travel conceit of the series — and modern special effects.
His appearance as a Terminator visibly three decades older was explained in a “very well-written” way, he said.
The film, out in UAE theatres on July 17, opens a new chapter for the Terminator franchise, with a slew of new cast members joining Schwarzenegger, including Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke and Divergent star Jai Courtney. It is directed by Alan Taylor, who recently made the Marvel blockbuster Thor: The Dark World.
The story follows resistance fighter Kyle Reese (Courtney) travelling back in time to 1984, the year of the first Terminator film, to save Sarah Connor (Clarke) from a cyborg humanoid assassin, the Terminator.
But he soon finds the events of the past have already been altered, taking him and Connor on a new mission to fight the killer artificial intelligence entity Skynet, with help from Schwarzenegger’s older, greyer Terminator, Connor’s protector.
“I said I’d be delighted to play the Terminator again, especially after 30 years of having starred in the first one, but we have to have a great story and a great script otherwise it won’t work,” Schwarzenegger said.
The production hired a bodybuilder with “a Mr Universe physique” to play the younger version of Schwarzenegger in the fight and then spent a year using computer graphic overlays to make him look like the first Terminator.
“When I saw the movie for the first time three weeks ago I was literally blown away, to see myself fighting me and to see exactly the way I looked in 1984,” Schwarzenegger said.
He said his young face had to be recreated. Not “one single frame” was taken from the first Terminator movie, because it is owned by a different production company, he explained.
“I didn’t actually know when I saw the fight who I should root for.”
The movie reserves some surprises, not least by introducing Clarke, as a tough Sarah Connor — and propelling the story into near present-day.
Along the way, it savvily blends together characters and events from the earlier movies.
“It’s very easy to underestimate what he’s doing with that character and what he’s done throughout this entire franchise, because we see he’s a machine, so there’s a rigidity to it, but its very carefully crafted,” said Australian actor Courtney.
For Clarke, playing out Sarah’s father-daughter relationship with the Terminator allowed Schwarzenegger to bring something new to his now iconic role.
“He’s brought new wisdom, new experience, a new sensitivity to the role that he is reprising of himself,” she said.
Courtney said he found a new way to approach Kyle Reese.
“We were really interested in finding the vulnerability with that character, and there’s great relationships to explore, not only with his fascination with regards to Sarah and his responsibility to her,” he said.
“You’ve got this very interesting, twisted family world.”
Curiosity to see Schwarzenegger return to his signature role should help drive box office returns for the movie, made for $155 million (Dh569.3 million).
However Rotten Tomatoes, a website that aggregates film reviews, gave Terminator Genisys a poor 33 per cent rating, with several critics saying it’s silly, with insufficient dramatic structure.
That sort of reception, if shared by audiences, would edge most ageing stars closer to the scrapheap of action-star obsolescence — except Schwarzenegger is convinced that he’s still got what it takes and is determined to show it.
He said, for instance, that he is reprising his title role from Conan, the first feature movie he made 35 years ago, for an upcoming sequel.
“All of this is very unusual, because normally when you watch movies such as James Bond or Batman, they switch out the actors every five, six or 10 years.”
But, the former bodybuilder grinned, “when you have a studly body, you shouldn’t be surprised”.
— With inputs from Reuters
