Terminator: Dark Fate is a nice bit of nostalgia but, like the other entries in the series since Terminator 2, it’s ultimately unnecessary.
Who would have thought that James Cameron’s low-budget 1984 action/sci-fi flick, The Terminator, would spawn five sequels over 35 years? During that time, the Terminator franchise has gone through many iterations. However, other than its superior 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the later films in the series have always felt unnecessary. The most recent entry, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, actually takes the step of eliminating 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, 2009’s Terminator Salvation, and 2015’s Terminator Genisys from the series by changing the story-line post T2. So, if you haven’t bothered with the series since 1991, you’re all caught up.
The Terminator franchise is built around this idea: In the future, machines take over the world and declare war on humanity. A human soldier from the future is sent into the past to stop a machine called a Terminator from killing the person who will become responsible for a resistance movement against the machines in the future. In the first film, the machine (Arnold Schwarzenegger) was sent to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who would give birth to the man who would lead the resistance. In the second film, John Connor, Sarah’s son, was the target.
Terminator: Dark Fate picks up 29 years after the events of the second film. Once again, a Terminator (Gabriel Luna) is sent from the future to eliminate Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) for reasons initially unknown. A human soldier, Grace (Mackenzie Davis), is sent back to stop the android assassin from completing its mission. Grace is augmented with machinery that gives her incredible strength and speed. However, she admits that, even with her enhanced strength, she is no match for the Terminator, a Rev-9 model. The Rev-9 can alter its appearance to look like anyone and split into a robotic endoskeleton and a liquid metal exoskeleton.
As Grace tries to explain her mission to an incredulous Dani while simultaneously fending off the Terminator, the pair encounter Sarah Connor, who has been hunting Terminators since 1991. And eventually, they’ll have a run-in with a older model Terminator, a T-800 (Schwarzenegger.) That’s all I will say about the plot which is more or less given away by the trailers.
As I watched the movie, I couldn’t help but think of how far special effects have changed since T2 was released in 1991. Part of what made that film jaw-droppingly awesome at the time was that audiences had never seen the CGI effects that allowed a character to morph or pass through walls with such realism. The liquid metal T-1000 seemed unstoppable because his abilities were as much of a mystery to the film’s characters as they were to the audience. Now, CGI effects are very ho-hum. The visual effects of T2, even though they still look amazing, seem quaint and minimalist compared to today’s overly busy effects sequences.
Dark Fate‘s action scenes are some of the best in the series since T2. But that doesn’t make them great. To please today’s moviegoer, the scenarios have to be dialed up to 11. The best action scenes in movies always contain a sense of danger and suspense. Here, the action is fun but there’s no suspense. The characters never really seem like they’re in danger. It feels as if there’s very little weight behind all those punches.
The biggest problem with the Terminator series is that it’s basically been telling the same story again and again. This “new” film is really just a remake of the first film with callbacks to the second film. The writers seemed to have so little faith in the few new ideas they had that they felt it was necessary to bring back characters from the first two movies. It didn’t seem to matter that the reason for their inclusion would be flimsy at best. The new characters, like Grace and Dani, feel like they were constructed from a checklist rather than fleshed-out people. And that’s my biggest problem with this film. If I don’t care about the characters and I don’t believe they’re ever in any danger, how can I care about the movie as a whole? While it’s a thrill to see Linda Hamilton back on the big screen, my reaction is based more on her history with the franchise than it is anything she does in the movie as Sarah Connor.
Terminator: Dark Fate is a nice bit of nostalgia but, like the other entries in the series since Terminator 2, it’s ultimately unnecessary.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
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