Terminator Genisys appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This was a good but not great presentation.
Sharpness was mostly positive, but inconsistencies occurred, which meant occasional shots seemed a little soft. Those remained modest, though, which left most of the film accurate and concise. Neither shimmering nor jaggies emerged, and the image lacked edge haloes. Print flaws also failed to materialize.
The film’s palette leaned teal, but the movie also incorporated magentas and yellows. These demonstrated good clarity within design parameters. Blacks showed nice depth, and shadows were fine; some low-light shots appeared slightly flat, but not to a substantial degree. This usually brought us an appealing transfer.
I felt more satisfied with the active Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Genisys. Because I don’t have an Atmos-equipped system, this played back as a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mix, and it gave us an exciting presentation.
One expects a lot of action from a Terminator film, and Genisys delivered. From beginning to end, the story came with plenty of chances for information from all the channels, and the mix made fine use of those moments. The elements blended together well and provided dynamic audio all around the room in a way that combined to pack a good punch and place the viewer inside the action.
Audio quality worked well. Music was rich and dynamic, while speech seemed concise and distinctive. Effects added power, as those elements appeared accurate and exciting, with clean highs and deep lows. The soundtrack became a strong part of the experience.
This package includes both 2D and 3D versions of Genisys. The picture quality comments above address the 2D edition, but I also want to talk about the 3D image.
3D Blu-rays tend to look darker than their 2D counterparts, and that became more of an issue with Genisys. Much of the story took place at night or in low-light interiors, so the image could be murkier than usual, and this also made definition less accurate. Neither shadows not sharpness were weak, but they seemed less appealing than I’d like in the 3D version.
In addition, the 3D imaging didn’t add a lot to the movie. A few scenes provided fun elements - such as during a helicopter chase - but the majority of the movie didn’t deliver especially involving 3D visuals. I’d choose the 2D version in the future, as the combination of less than stellar picture quality and average “immersiveness” made the 3D image less impressive than I’d like.
Three featurettes appear here, and we start with the 15-minute, 51-second Family Dynamics. It offers comments from producers Dana Goldberg and David Ellison, director Alan Taylor, writers/executive producers Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier, and actors Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Matthew Smith, JK Simmons, Jai Courtney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Byung-Hun Lee. They discuss cast, characters and performances. A few decent notes result, but much of the content veers toward fluffy praise.
Next comes Infiltration and Termination. In this 25-minute, 29-second show, we hear from Taylor, Goldberg, Ellison, Schwarzenegger, Lee, Emilia Clarke, Kalogridis, Lussier, Jason Clarke, Courtney, Simmons, Smith, cinematographer Kramer Morganthau, and production designer Neil Spisak. The program covers sets/locations, stunts and action, allusions to earlier films and story/character domains, cast/performances, and Taylor’s impact on the production. “Infiltration” offers more substance than “Dynamics”, but it still lacks much heft. That leaves it as a decent but thin overview.
Finally, we find the 15-minute, seven-second Upgrades: VFX of Terminator Genisys. It gives us notes from Ellison, Goldberg, Taylor, MPC VFX supervisor Sheldon Stopsack, Double Negative VFX supervisor Pete Bebb, lead CG artist Jamie Daydock, sequence supervisors Isaac Layish, Davis Lee and Maxx Leong, lead CG artist Andrew Williamson, CG artists Gerald Blaise and Tobias Keip, and filmmaker James Cameron. As expected, “Upgrades” concentrates on the visual effects used in Genisys. It delivers a perfunctory but informative view of the material.
A second disc provides a DVD copy of Genisys. It lacks any of the Blu-ray’s extras.
For the fifth entry in the series, Terminator Genisys delivers a watchable but erratic film. Though parts of it work pretty well, the package as a whole seems inconsistent and underwhelms. The Blu-ray offers excellent audio along with generally good picture and a few moderately informative bonus materials. Genisys brings us a sporadically entertaining but not top-notch Terminator adventure.