Terminator: Dark Fate

The story in a nutshell: a malevolent Terminator is sent from the future to terminate a woman from the present. It is believed she will be the mother of a resistance leader in the war against the machines.  The resistance also sends somebody back to fight that Terminator.

There are 2 ways to watch this production.  With your arms folded as you realize the plot is nearly a carbon copy of the original film or with relief that the story in a Terminator movie is actually more concerned with extracting humanity and emotion from a simplified screenplay than special effects.  Deadpool director Tim Miller is at the helm and he mostly keeps things moving.  Although the screenplay by David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray does sag in the middle.  What could have been a brisk efficient 98-minute actioner is stretched to an interminable 128 minutes.  The action sequences are indeed good.  I just didn’t need so many.

Terminator: Dark Fate is the 6th entry in this series.  Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron (Titanic) and Gale Anne Hurd created the franchise back in 1984 with The Terminator.  Then came Terminator 2: Judgment Day in 1991.  I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned, some time passed and then we got this installment in 2019.  I’m ignoring 3 other sequels and James Cameron has wisely decided to do the same.  He’s gotten involved in the franchise for the first time since T2 and has relegated entries 3 through 5 as part of some alternate universe.  Also reuniting after 28 years are Arnold Schwarzenegger as T-800 and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor.

Let’s not underestimate the sheer joy of rejoining these two on-screen.  OK, so the producers have decided to introduce a whole new cast as well.  I won’t discount the contributions of characters Grace (Mackenzie Davis) the modified human-cyborg sent to protect Dani (Natalia Reyes) from evil Terminator Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna).  Incidentally, the advanced Rev-9 can separate the skin from its body and act as two units at once.  I guess that’s what passes for innovation in this screenplay.  It was a little confusing at first because I don’t recall an explanation in the movie as to why he was doing this.  It just sort of happens.

The new additions to the cast are serviceable, but the real spotlight belongs to seeing Linda Hamilton again and to a lesser extent, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Yes, their relationship arc admittedly copies what happens in T2 but that was nearly 3 decades ago.   I think enough time has passed that you can now choose to label their interaction as an homage.   Linda Hamilton is especially good.  She adopts this world-weary “seen it all before” persona.   She’s so grizzled and tough that the portrayal almost borders on parody.   I enjoyed her much in the same way it was nice having Jaime Lee Curtis return in the Halloween movie from 2018.  That follow-up also chose to ignore a collection of inferior sequels too so it’s very similar in spirit to this film.  Still, did we really need a sixth chapter in the Terminator franchise?  Simply put, no.  However, this is the best entry since T2 so there’s that.  It could’ve been a lot worse.

10-31-19