Terminator: Genisys, or How to Waste 170 Million Dollars, is a righteously obsolete sequel; a feckless manure cache more dedicated to nostalgia as computer animated gimmick, patchy, gravity-ignorant FX and slinky-esque “gotcha!” twists than little things like plot, internal consistency and character development. To call Terminator: Not a Word a failure would be to acknowledge that it even tried to succeed in the first place. And let’s be honest here, Terminator 5 tried not.

Embarrassingly so, T5 is the kind of film in which each player on the board defines themselves by shrieking their character motivation: “I’m not a man, not a machine… I’m more!”; “We’re here to stop the end of the world”; “I’m willing to die for her”; “What you’re doing right now, this is the end of the war,” etc, etc. When they’re not busy doing such, they’re stating confusing (nay, confused) narrative exposition, a la:

Kyle Reese: This is all wrong! John sent me here to save you!

Sarah Connor: From the Terminator that was sent back to kill me, I know. But we already took care of him.

Shamefully, this is one of the better bits of dialogue to be found in this dumpster dive of an sci-fi/action sequel.

In Terminator, a cybernetic Arnold Schwarzenegger travels back in time to kill the birth-giver of a revolution. With Terminator: Hire an Editor, the franchises turns back the clock to make you regret ever liking the damn thing in the first place. Its ineptitude is eclipsed only by its stupidity as none of the many balls Genisys is intent on tossing into the air manage to land without massive thuds. Cue the rotten tomatoes, I’m sensing an uprising.

One can thank Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry) for a screenplay that’s as convoluted as it is just plain dumb. For this duo of screenwriters didn’t find it enough to force their characters to spout lame-brained play-by-plays of the nonsensical happenstances. No, they tinkered and toyed with time travel and robotics until the mother board was scrambled to eggs. Scrambled eggs. If anyone can make heads or tails of a number of Terminator: Spellcheck’s bumbling plot elements, I’ll give you a complimentary back rub and a dazzling pair of 3D goggles.

Of all the films issues, the biggest lies in the chemistry (or complete and utter lack thereof) between leads Jai Courney and Emilia Clarke. Sarah Connor, the mother of revolution, comes in the form of the mother of dragons and for all the goodwill Clarke has stored up from her tenure as Khalessi, first of her name, the breaker of chains, on HBO’s Game of Thrones, she’s made a cinematic debut sure to haunt her throughout at least the half-life of her career.

Under her natural thatch of mouse brown hair, Clarke squawks this’s and thats – mostly “Pops!” at the aged Arnie (It’s her nickname for him. It’s cute. Get it?) – but I’m not sure whether her character or her acting is more in need of rescuing. There’s so little bite to her bark that she’s all but reduced to a toothless spray of saliva under the weight of Lussier and Kalogridis’ living abortion of a script. Sure, she can shoulder a high-caliber sniper rifle but she can’t shoulder a scene worth sh*t.

I’ve not held back expressing my disinterest (even distaste) for Mr. Jai the Australian Guy, first of his name, the breaker of franchises, in the past but his complete and utter lack of acting prowess has never been so potently displayed, in a sweating spotlight, with no excuse but a gaping maw of talentlessness. From his appearance in Die Hard 5: Whoops I Did it Again to his recurring role in Divergent (The Series That Wanted to Be But Wasn’t), the man is a franchise wrecking ball.

You want to discredit a reputable pantheon of filmography? Give ol’ Jai a try. If he continues to land tentpole spots, we’ll be left to assume that indeed there is a Producers-type plot taking a firm hold on Hollywood’s love handles and preparing to thrust. That or crab people are running LA with the most dubious of intentions.

Each (Jai and Clarke) on their own is fist-bitingly bad but when they’re forced to spar – which is pretty much damn near every scene – the air is sucked out of the room with a super-suction Dirt Devil. It’s hard to think of another onscreen couple this year so unconvincing and ultimately painful to watch. When one inevitably professes their love towards the other, I already had my bags packed and was more than willing to check out of this by-the-hour motel of a film for good.

Considering this is a Terminator film and a certain someone built a verifiable empire of a career on the back of Terminator films, we’d be remiss not to discuss Arnold’s stake in the whole thing. After all, he’s back. Regrettably, he’s still not very good in it: tired, going through the motions and largely disengaged, though he’s mostly not to blame. As his character reiterates time and again, “I’m old, not obsolete” but everything on the screen indicates otherwise. Though Arnie provides a small beacon of hope when battling a CG-version of his old self or spit-balling recycled catchphrases, it’s JK Simmons (in a small, thankless role) who is, unsurprisingly, the most watchable of the crew though.

Ultimately, Terminator: Is it Over Yet? is a joke, and a poorly told one at that. At the expense of the audience’s time and money, director Alan Taylor has spun a yard with thread that’s already passed through the lower intestine of a cat in heat. Its threadbare plot is convoluted and nonsensical (even a little stoned and squinting through clunky IMAX glasses); the spectacle looks half-baked (I can’t begin to count the number of times a Terminator gazed in awe at its shape-shifting metallic hand) with practical and digital effects that mangles everything from Jason Clarke’s facial scars to a doltish mid-air helicopter pursuit. As for Lorne Balfe‘s dreadfully forgettable score, I couldn’t recall the theme song (not even the theme song!!) a mere five minutes after exiting the theater.

Further, the entire plot of Terminator: Thanks Jai Courtney is predicated on a twist to the original films’ timeline and yet, incredibly, such an important piece of information is never unveiled. Imagine Star Wars (much less subtly) eluding to the Vader twist and then never getting around to making it explicit. Pulling your hair out would only be warranted if you’re willing to invest in this movie and after the first scene has wrapped, so too will your brain have tapped out. Terminator: Genisys is so unfaithful to its own logic that were this screening in Syria, death by stoning would seem a fair reaction.