TERMINATOR DARK FATE: The Best Terminator Sequel Since T2

 Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Produced by: James Cameron, David Ellison 

Directed by: Tim Miller    

Written by: David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray  

Production Company: 20^th Century Fox  

Starring: Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta             

Runtime: 127 minutes    









   
SYNOPSIS:

More than two decades have passed since Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) prevented Judgment Day, and the machines respond to their defeat by sending an advanced killer android called the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) back in time to kill a young woman, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes). And in turn, the human Resistance sends out Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a cybernetically enhanced soldier, to protect Dani. But Dani and Grace soon learn that they cannot do it on their own, forcing them to team up with a battle-hardened Sarah and the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to thwart the Rev-9’s plan. 

REVIEW: 

In 1984, James Cameron’s low-budget sci-fi B movie the Terminator beat the odds by not only becoming the surprise box office hit of that year, but by also becoming the quintessential cinematic classic that helped catapult many of its talents behind and in front of the camera to stardom.

Cameron’s pre-Terminator days of being known as the man who made the trashy Piranha II: the Spawning (1982) felt like a distant memory since today, his name is attached to the second and third highest grossing films of all-time. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s breakout turn as the T-800, the titular mean killing machine, made him the action movie icon he is today. Beyond its stars, it was just a damn good movie that age like fine wine, especially in today’s drone era. 

It doesn’t take a while for the Terminator to blossom into a big money-making franchise. Its follow-up Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) made a boatload of money while also being the rare sequel that’s better than the original, so much so that it’s considered by many to be an action and special effect masterpiece. The same cannot be said for the next three sequels as each and every one of them continuously deliver diminishing returns. 

But that should not stop the studios from flogging an already dead horse. Terminator: Dark Fate serves as the franchise’s latest attempt at restoring the glory days of the Terminator and T2, which, despite having Schwarzenegger reprise his role for the fifth time, isn’t exactly a welcome sight for die-hard Terminator fans let down by recent efforts. Unlike the other post-T2 sequels, now they manage to get James Cameron back (albeit only in co-writing and producing capacity) as well as Linda Hamilton to play Sarah Connor for the first time since 28 years ago. And these additions quickly made their mark by rendering technically its sixth installment the official third Terminator movie, picking up right from where T2 left off while terminating (pun intended) all its immediate successors. 

In doing so, Terminator: Dark Fate serves as an essential, welcome course correction for the oft-rebooted time-travelling cyborg franchise. Dark Fate is not only considerably better than the disappointing non-canon sequels, but it also proves itself to be more than worthy of being the true long-awaited heir to T2. Cameron and his slew of credited co-writers deserve some pat in the back here for concocting a much streamlined, almost nostalgia-heavy effort reminiscent of other past successful franchise revivals such as Star Wars the Force Awakens (2015) and the more recent Halloween (2018). Like the aforementioned titles, this particular revival stays true to the formula that worked so well in the first two movies, which makes it feel like a homely recycling from the all-too familiar ingredients given some new lease of life thanks to the script’s no-frills mythology tactic. 

Dark Fate provides a timely reminder of what the Terminator franchise is all about: pure non-stop action. Director Tim Miller spends much of its two-hour plus long runtime filling the screen with shootouts, car chases, robot fights and explosions galore. Miller himself is no stranger to such type of big-budget, R-rated action franchise filmmaking, having made his directorial debut with the stylish, propulsive Marvel comic book romp Deadpool (2016), and his highly kinetic flair feels right at home with the kinetically action-oriented Terminator universe. 

Nearly every set-piece in this movie are so kinetic, more than what the previous post-T2 offerings had achieved, it’s like a giddy shot of adrenaline injected straight to the veins. Packed with plenty of eye-popping stunts and mostly superb special effect work, it’s a technically proficient exercise in popcorn filmmaking, performed with the same level of forward propulsion and style as Miller’s first Deadpool movie and, even to a certain extent, the James Cameron-directed Terminator movies. Miller has shown such an innate taste for visceral joy, grit and balletic mayhem that makes even the most throwaway set-pieces seem urgent, breathtaking and high-stakes, as if it’s a cross between the larger-than-life wackiness of the Fast & Furious movies and the street-level seriousness of John Wick. Some of the chase sequences are as gravity-defying, gonzo and theatrical as any popcorn action movies can and should be, but the editing plus the seamless way the movie integrates practical stunts with CGI make them seem comprehensible and credible. Yet, for all the chases, the hand-to-hand combat sequence might be this installment’s strongest highlight, especially the cyborg fights between Grace and Rev-9, all of which are impressively shot and choreographed. 

For proof of how well they are done, look no further than its opening sequence, which begins directly in a Mexican factory with an intense showdown between Grace and Rev-9 and culminates with a highway chase/shootout that harkens back to the iconic canal chase sequence in T2 and the equally iconic highway shootout sequence in Deadpool. It’s a familiar rush no doubt, but it’s so incredibly constructed and infectiously fun it’s the good kind of familiar. Miller accomplishes what not many action filmmakers could: finding new perspective on tackling probably the most clichéd, seen-it-a-thousand-times set-pieces in cinema’s history. He manages to keep things moving at a delightfully quick pace, with nary a dull moment. It’s a movie that hits the ground running from the get-go and just keeps going and going from there, maintaining a momentum without ever letting up. It’s a movie that never stops indulging in its thrilling rounds of action movie one-upmanship, where each scene continues to push the stunts to the next level. 

That is not to say Dark Fate pays no attention to its characters. There’s a great feminist undercurrent driving this movie that’s often associated not only with this franchise, but also with James Cameron’s body of work through the strong presence of one or two of its action heroines, who aren’t just the archetypal girls with guns and brawns: they’re fully-realized women who can break bones as well as get their own bones broken. Much of the downtime moments between the action sequences have a pretty laid-back, meditative girl-buddy road picture feel to it, where it’s just Sarah Connor, Grace and Dani getting to know more about each other, which adds some depth to each of their characters and their relationship. The movie is more about women sticking together rather than standing up for themselves and its sisterhood angle of what feminism means is a breath of fresh air in a universe used to the idea that a feminist is a lone wolf detached from any form of societal bonds. 

In that way, it is also a natural progression for Sarah Connor’s arc. Cameron and his writing team find some aching poignancy, wisdom, action movie heroine strength and occasional humor in the tragic life of an aging, world-weary woman who, despite doing the world good by hunting down Terminator, doesn’t really have much purpose left of her own until both Grace and Dani come along. This makes her evolution from lone wolf to a protective quasi-maternal figure for the aforementioned characters feel moving and cathartic. 

Speaking of Grace, the script does give her back story the same amount of emotional weight. Grace is essentially the female version of Kyle Reese with her also being a soldier sent to the past to protect a messianic figure, but she feels like more of a fully-realized character than Reese ever was in a way that redefines the Kyle Reese role. She kicks as much butt as Kyle Reese, but she has certain tenderness about her that gives Grace more humanity, evident from snippets of her flash backs showcasing her humble origins and sisterly bond with Dani. Furthermore, the presence of Grace allows the creators to revisit the half human half Terminator hybrid storyline from Terminator Salvation (2009) and retell it in a more compelling way. 

A Terminator movie isn’t one without the big baddie, and Rev-9 provides the series with its fiercest adversary yet since the iconic T-1000 in T2.  It’s reminiscent of T-1000 in a way that the cyborg is portrayed as a silent, deadly killing machine without any tangibly emotional explanation or motives, save for killing his target, which is refreshing in an era so obsessed with sympathetic villains. And like the T-1000, he can be calm and calculated at times, with his ability to just blend in without having to kill all the time. Credit to the CGI team, the Rev-9 in its true cyborg form is a technical marvel, especially in the many moments he can split into two bodies. 

As far as flaws go, Dark Fate’s retconning impulse turns out to be its Achilles heel as certain sections creates more plot holes and questions than answers. 

Five minutes into the movie and already, it introduces a plot twist that defies the franchise’s own convoluted logic. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say the twist involves a revisionist spin on a legacy character’s arc. It’s certainly a big deal, but Cameron and his writers don’t even bother to try justifying their creative decision. It undoes the narrative impact of the 1984 original and its sequel to the point of rendering them irrelevant to the canon, further doing this legacy character a disservice in a middle finger to the fans kind of way. And the problem here is less about the twist itself, but more about its execution. It’s so badly, almost nonchalantly mishandled and emotionally empty, which ends up leaving a sour aftertaste instead. 

In addition, the twist comes across as the franchise’s unsubtle attempt at passing the torch from the aforementioned old legacy character to a new legacy character. And the fact that the new legacy character is this movie’s weakest link does it no favor either. Dani is a downgrade from her mythic predecessor. Whereas her predecessor manages to find the right balance between being a real person and a plot device, she only succeeds in the latter. For the most part, she is a profoundly uninteresting character, passive, utterly bland and cut from the same cloth as other generic, modern-day action movie damsels-in-distresses. The script never tries to rise above such clichés. Even when they do, it’s hard to buy into the idea of her being able to transform from damsel-in-distress into a strong heroine within a short period of time. 

And Dark Fate has another passing of the torch moment, now from an old legacy big bad Skynet to the next one called Legion, which adds nothing to the plot. It’s a mere afterthought that is never as important as Skynet was like in T2 or the other non-canon Terminator sequels. Yes, Legion is simply a rehash of Skynet, and the script fails to distinguish these two antagonists apart for the name change and level of intelligence. The movie seems to confuse the machine’s desperation for ineptitude, because Legion, despite its Skynet-esque reputation, is embarrassingly inept in the way they go about their business. There’s a throwaway dialogue suggesting that they have been sending their machines out back in time for the past twenty years and just the idea that they keep doing the same thing over and over again and never learn from their mistakes strains credulity. 

The movie also provides an unconvincing excuse this time around for bringing the franchise’s other legacy character T-800 back. The T-800 “Carl” here is different from previous incarnations and doesn’t really have as much screentime. Carl is a glorified cameo, sidelined for large spells of the movie’s first half until he finally makes his presence felt at right about its halfway point. But his supporting role and his status as a different Terminator model should not detract from the fact that the script has completely jumped the shark with his character arc and how that intertwined with Sarah Connor’s traumatic past. The manner in which the movie goes about explaining it is just bogus and out of left field. Even worse, it adds such an unnecessary new wrinkle to the Terminator mythology that contradicts with the T-800’s portrayal in the previous two movies. 

For all its retconning issues, Dark Fate continues the franchise’s long-held tradition of putting together an exciting ensemble cast with more than enough alluring screen presence to give entertaining performances. There are more familiar faces present here than in the last three movies and all of them are uniformly irreplaceable in their respective roles. But some of the fresh faces are as much of a stand-out as the old guards.

Linda Hamilton marks her long-awaited return to the franchise since T2 as cinema’s toughest, most iconic action movie heroine Sarah Connor in typical badass style.  Hamilton slips back into her character’s boots so comfortably and well that it looks as if she had never even left. And she makes the most of Sarah’s newfound grizzled, world-weary charm and T2-esque buff physique (stunningly, at the age of 63) to command its viewer’s attention in every action scene that she’s in. Yet, in the more dramatic scenes, she also has the ability of ensuring her action heroine maintain some sense of humanity as she brilliantly treads the fine line between fierce female power, pathos and good humor.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is, for the lack of a better word, back as T-800 and doing a magnificent job at reinventing the character in a fresh, enjoyable and surprisingly comedic way.  Schwarzenegger has a charming deadpan sense of humor that sets him apart from other action movie muscle men, and it’s fully utilized here, making the idea of a rugged, regular guy Terminator seem more believable than it sounds. His passionate commentary about drapes alone is just as compelling as his legendary one-liners, and only he can deliver it with such distinctive comic timing and conviction. But he’s got some moments to pump up his larger-than-life action hero muscle, and he performs it with effortless ease. 

In terms of the new recruits, it’s a delight to watch an underrated character actress like Mackenzie Davis take the giant, but confident leap from second fiddle roles to leading lady material here with a breakout action-heroine performance as Grace, a cybernetically enhanced soldier assigned to protect Dani. Davis looks the part with her bowl cut and white tank top, but she also brings a certain immense physicality and tough-as-nails grit to the table to allow her to sound and act like a formidable force to be reckoned with. She is more than capable of marrying sheer brawns with much-needed gravitas and heft to make Grace more human than what her job description might suggest. 

Gabriel Luna’s transformation from television star to movie star is as impressive. Luna demonstrates the same tremendous action star potential he had shown during his recurring run as Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013-present) series with a straight-laced, but ultimately entertaining villain performance as the big-baddie Rev-9. What he lacks in Schwarzenegger’s imposing built, he more than makes up for with cold-blooded efficiency and cat-like litheness. It’s reminiscent of Robert Patrick’s performance as the T-1000 in the second movie. In some way, he channels Patrick’s T-1000 to build a highly versatile Terminator model that’s as convincing as someone posing as a regular guy as well as be a relentless, indestructible killing machine. 

On the downside, newcomer Natalia Reyes is wasted as Dani, which is odd considering her importance to the narrative. Reyes isn’t bad in the role, but at the same time, the script doesn’t give her that much to do. She is fine in fits and starts, convincingly human as an underappreciated plain Jane in ways that transcends the thin material on the page. For some reason, she remains both well-cast and miscast as the character, proving once again how an actor is only as good as the script. She is wholly unconvincing as a girl who is much more special than any other plain Janes, lacking the authority and spunk required to make it believable. 

CONCLUSION: 

Terminator: Dark Fate recaptures some of the first two installments’ energy and intensity in a mostly exciting, fast-paced and almost balls-to-the-walls thrill ride packed with plenty of terrific action sequences and strong performances from the old and new generation. 

Score: 8/10