Terminator: Genisys

Confusing time travel, lacklustre spectacle and bland casting earmark this unexceptional reboot of James Cameron's classic cyborg v man franchise for the smartphone generation. Kyle Reese (an insipid Jai Courtney) arrives from war-torn 2029 to whisk the 1984 Sarah Connor (Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke), here completely clued-up future apocalypse-wise, to 2017 where they must halt the Genisys "app", Skynet's first step to world machine domination. Byung-hun Lee makes a creditable T-1000, but even more eye-catching are the triple versions of a rock-solid Arnold Schwarzenegger, now called "Pops", still engagingly unstoppable and uttering those famous one-liners, the latest addition being, "I'm old, but not obsolete". It should have been a simple story for director Alan Taylor (Thor: the Dark World) except that he has to navigate his way through links to past offerings with complex scientific jargon about nexus points, alternate childhood realities, surprise doppelgangers and bewildering parallel universes, making for a head-scratching narrative. The CG action is equally unimaginative.