Terminator: Dark Fate Review

If there was ever a film franchise that never needed another sequel, it's "Terminator." The first two are sublime action sci-fi flicks (with the first one practically a slasher film), hell, even th 3D theme park attraction was damn fine. (Though there is some novelty in seeing Arnie return for the second sequel, "Rise of the Machines.")

But by this point, the plot, dealing with time travel, has become so convoluted, with so many timelines that this newest one, "Dark Fate," ignores everything after the second film! You know a franchise has no idea what it's doing when it needs to erase the developments established in an amusement park attraction! There is a major difference between a series like this and say, the James Bond pictures- "Terminator" is build purely around Arnold Schwarzenegger (and to a lesser extent, Linda Hamilton), not able to reinvigorate the stories with new blood. James Cameron even returns, albeit as a productor and receiving "story by" credit. So what we have here is 128 minutes "best hits" compilation, take it or leave it. I mostly took it.

Let's get the plot out of the way, because it's easily the weakest retread. Dani (Natalia Reyes) is this film's Sarah Connor (who's also here but...), a seemingly random girl who is suddenly attacked by the bad Terminator, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) but then saved by Grace (Mackenzie Davis), the good Terminator (or enhanced person, whatever). The rest is a long chance scene, punctuated by the duo's rescue by Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)'s rescue and the trio's rescue by T-800 (Arnie, AKA Carl, a name that builds to the film's biggest laugh). There are the usual body cloning, timeline explanations, and stunned bystanders- like I said, there is nothing new in the plot department. Even the subtle variations, which are disguised as twists, come off as stale.

The acting and action, also complete reruns of the first two movies, are a lot more successful, including some decent development considering the dialogue mostly returns from earlier entries, and of course, plenty of explosions, most of which are delightful. But we came here for Arnie and Linda, who slip so easily into their most iconic roles despite their varying screen time. They say what we expect them to say, and do the things we expect them to do, and the film expects that'll be enough. It's not, unfortunately, because we don't care about what's happening around them; how can I be excited with such a blatantly recycled plot!? There are three(!) people credited as screenwriters and five(!!) people getting "story by" credit- how was there not one original idea there?!

I suppose it's silly expecting something new here, but like when I brought up James Bond earlier, those films are essentially the same each time, only bigger, longer, and funnier, only to be reset for the next Bond. Why couldn't that happen here? I guess it's because people like Arnie, and Arnie likes being liked. It's not entirely wrong to say I'm disappointed here, but I'm definitely satisfied.