Terminator: Dark Fate

Starring: Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta, Tristan Ulloa, Tom Hopper
Directed by: Tim Miller
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
2019

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) reluctantly teams with an augmented human (Mackenzie Davis) and a terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to save a woman (Natalia Reyes) vital to the future of the human race.

Review:

Tim: I've always been a fan of The Terminator franchise, perhaps even when I shouldn't have (Terminator 3, Terminator Genisys). I just loved the ideas of time travel, humans battling against nearly unstoppable robots. I was always kind to the franchise. Not anymore. I can't do it anymore. This is the first movie I just couldn't bring myself to like. Some of it is this film's fault, but franchise fatigue is also a factor. Startlingly, this is the 6th film in the franchise. After the first two, they all have started to feel redundant. Maybe we get Sarah Connor, maybe John, maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger is in it, maybe not. They're all variations of the same thing and the time travel element makes it feel redundant. This movie might have been good, but we've seen it all before.

I'm more convinced than ever that this franchise needs to go on the shelf for a while. It's not like they have been cramming movies continuously down our throat. The franchise gave us 1 film in the 1980s, 1 in the 1990s, 2 in the 2000s, and now 2 in the 2010s. Still, it all adds up to too much. There's not enough forward momentum in this franchise. Terminator: Dark Fate doesn't help matters, as it acts as a direct sequel to the first two movies, ignoring 3, 4, and 5. I'm sure it felt like this was simplifying things, but this movie doesn't truly differentiate itself from all those other films. The movie follows the same repeating patterns, again and again.

This movie tried to provide that momentum by scrapping those other films and picking up the story of Sarah Connor. In theory, this is wonderful- that is what the franchise had been missing, right? But, think about the plot here- a terminator from the future comes back to the past to kill a woman who plays a critical role in humanity's future. Another terminator tries to stop him. Does that sound familiar? Sure, this movie throws a few very slightly different twists at us- there's an augmented human involved! It's Dani that's important, not Sarah! It's not Skynet here, it's Legion! You don't fully get why Dani is important! This is all window dressing. It's the same movie wearing slightly different clothes. It follows the same patterns. It ends basically the same way. There's nothing more creatively unique about this movie than any of the ones we skipped. The film cannot recover from that. The feeling is that you don't even need to see this movie- just wait a few years and some other movie will come out that probably makes this one feel irrelevant (much like it this one did to 2015's Genisys. There doesn't seem to be a point to any of these movies and after 6 films, it's exhausting.

This movie really sold itself on the act of bringing Linda Hamilton back to her iconic Sarah Connor role. That's definitely the coolest part of the movie, although I have to admit being just slightly underwhelmed. She gets a cool entrance, but then spends most of the movie hating Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator (for good reason, but it's not the most entertaining). It feels like the movie deserves praise for letting Hamilton step into this role once again, but I wouldn't say they fully leveraged her strengths. It's always good seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger in this role, but some of the shine has worn off. This is the fourth film he's appeared in, and his role here honestly felt so similar to the one in Genisys. It's truly great seeing Schwarzenegger and Hamilton together again, but that only gets you so far.

The new introductions to the cast were good. Gabriel Luna was fantastic as the Rev-9. I enjoyed his run on "Agents of Shield" and he makes for an excellent terminator here. He reminded me of Robert Patrick's performance in Judgment Day. Mackenzie Davis was good, too. It was fun seeing her in this strong female role and it absolutely was a passing-the-torch moment between Hamilton and her. Davis gives a strong performance and was one of the better parts of the film. Natalia Reyes was good, but I didn't quite love her performance. It's hard not to compare her to Hamilton (since she's stepping into that surrogate Sarah Connor role) and her performance doesn't measure up. I enjoyed Reyes, for sure, but the movie doesn't do her big favors.

The visual effects and action were decent, but I don't think there was a truly standout moment. The franchise has given us big explosive action scenes in every film and they all kind of blend together. Nothing in this film truly differentiates itself. There wasn't one jaw dropping moment, or a scene that didn't feel like we'd seen it before. It was all decent- fairly entertaining, competent action sequences. There just wasn't anything special about this film.

This all plays out in the domestic box office. There's no doubt that audiences weren't interested in this film. Shockingly, this movie made only $62 million, which is $27 million LESS than Genisys and $140 million less than the franchise high of Judgment Day. Every sign points to the same thing- audiences are tired of these redundant movies.

I've always been a vocal fan of these films. Judgment Day is still one of the greatest sci-fi movies ever made. All these movies have been enjoyable to some extent. However, it feels like the franchise is approaching creative bankruptcy. We've seen Schwarzenegger return to this role multiple times. Hamilton has now got another performance in. None of it has captured the spark of what Cameron did with the first two movies. Terminator: Dark Fate not only has a generic name, it's a generic movie. I'm sad to say this is the most disappointed I've felt about a film in this franchise yet. It's time to power this one down.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6.5


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation, Terminator Genisys