Ruminations on the riddles of time travel fill the gaps between explosions as director Alan Taylor adds an easily forgotten chapter to the action franchise that began with 1984’s “The Terminator.” The Messiah-like figure (Jason Clarke) at the head of humanity’s future struggle against a race of murderous machines is threatened by a cyborg (Byung-hun Lee) who has traveled into the past to eliminate the hero’s mother (Emilia Clarke) before she can give birth. So he dispatches his most trusted lieutenant (Jai Courtney) to follow the assassin back in time and protect mom. To his confusion, though, the would-be bodyguard finds that his protege is already being shielded by another chronology-defying robot (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who seems to be fighting on the wrong side. Though there’s mayhem aplenty, little blood is seen to flow, and the fact that time machine passengers must journey in the buff is also treated more as an occasion for smirking jokes than visual exploitation. Together with the relative absence of obscenity in the dialogue, this restrained approach may lead at least some parents to judge the film acceptable for mature teens.
Watch out for: Pervasive action violence with minimal gore, several scenes of partial nudity, a few uses of profanity, at least one rough term, occasional crude and crass language.
Rated: A-III, adults; MPAA: PG-13, parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
