The Greatest Story Ever Told

I am really behind Arnie. He's a nice guy and needs a break. I mean it's not his fault that California is resembling the prune skin complexion of many of its older inhabitants. He was Governor of that great State, but it wasn't on his watch that the wells dried up and the swimming pools emptied. So I felt for him when running short of cash he signed to do a "Compare the Market" ad playing opposite those pesky meerkats.

He was never a great actor, and to his credit he never pretended to be. Yet he played in some scorchers. " True Lies" - who can ever forget Jamie Lee Curtis. "Total Recall": frankly I'd forget everything to have a missus like Sharon Stone. And "Terminator" and "Terminator 2". I was in my foxy late thirties when I saw the first film. Linda Hamilton what a woman! she melted the heart of cyber Arnie; reprising the role in T2.

Time travel is a bugger. If you're not careful you'll find yourself at the centre of a logically inconsistency and "Phut" you're dead before you're born. In movies the way around this is to distract the audience. Anything will do: sex; luscious scenes or fast and furious action. In the "Terminator" franchise it's loads of guns, explosions and fisty cuffs: ignoring the fact that if you've already managed world domination why bother with hand to hand combat.

But Arnie always puts up a good fight, butt naked or not. Which raises a fundamental question about time travel. Why butt naked? According to the script any covering other than flesh makes time travel problematic. No weapons 'cause they're metal and would upset the time space continuum. Besides the possibility of not ferrous guns - we have them printed out in 2015 - aren't the robots metallic? So why do they get through the space/time gateway unscathed?

Enough of this speculation. This afternoon we, the missus and I, went to see "Terminator: Genisys". Loads have commented on the misspelling of Genesis, but of course it's deliberate. Letting the Geni out of the bottle.

We witnessed it in deafening surround sound, 6 feet from the screen in 3 D - we had to pay an extra quid for the glasses. After 15 mins of ads, directed as far as I could make out at the sexually active 18 to 24 age group - I'm not complaining, we were assaulted by a series of trailers for films...directed at the sexually... etc.

I have no idea what the film was about. That doesn't worry me because I'm sure that neither the director, producer, actors nor the studio had the foggiest idea either. It had something to do with trying to stop Skynet, which was run, it seemed, by some really nice, successful black Americans. Such good role models. Except, one of their people was from the past, John Conner.  We thought he was a hero, who in the earlier Terminator films Arnie was trying to save from the machines, but we find out that all along he's a machine himself...And the evil Skynet is our very own Time Lord Matt Smith, wonderfully pixelated.

Arni spent much of the film being mashed to a pulp, as did his arch rival John Conner.  Despite being ripped apart and melted down Arni survived long enough to give his blessing to the future Mr and Mrs Kyle Reese. Sarah Conner, who as far as I could gather was wife, mother and daughter of most of the men in the film was played by an English "Game of Thrones" beauty Emilia Clarke. Kyle spent most of the film having no idea what was going on. Which made you realise why John Conner sent him back to save humanity - not.

There were loads of LA cops who had the nasty habit of melting into offensive weapons and a superannuated copper who spent much of his time trying to get credit for his appearance in the first "Terminator" film.

It, of course, ended once again with the destruction of Skynet, Arnie smiling and Kyle saying something totally meaningless to his younger self which would save the world in the future.

Which sort of made a nonsense of Sarah Connor's statement at the end of the film that she was now free to live her own life. She wasn't.

But that's what happens when you mess around with time travel. Even Conan the Barbarian can't help you out.