The director did his thing. I thoroughly enjoyed this as an action movie. The villain was relentless and very unforgiving. Moments where he actually spared lives made me aware that he is here for his mission. This could have been the second best terminator movie if it had come right after judgement day. Messing up the timeline with the other installations didn't help the franchise. Regardless, this is easily the third best. Another compliment is the very good pace of the movie and a very professional use of camera shots during action sequences. You can actually see what's happening in the fast paced scenes. The CGI was not perfect but near perfect. Scenes were the kinematics could have failed the physics aspect of the CGI were smartly cut short.
My one man complaint was Grace's lack of strong emotion when her brother died. Yes, she cried after 3 or 4 seconds after his car exploded. I expected more emotion when he got impaled and even a stronger and timely emotion when his car exploded. But overall the acting was quite good for an action movie. I really enjoyed this movie.