Movie Review: Terminator: Dark Fate

Synopsis:

>Major Spoiler Alert!< The film opens with another Terminator (Schwarzenegger) sent back in time to kill John Conner (Edward Furlong). Only this time, he succeeds! Then we go back to the future where a human/terminator hybrid named Grace (Davis) is sent back in time to protect a young girl named Dani (Reyes), who will become the leader of the resistance instead of John Conner. Another Terminator, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) is also sent back, only he’s sent to kill her. After John Conner was killed, apparently, Skynet is also no more, but a new artificial intelligence, called Legion took over and is the new threat to humanity. Our female heroes duck and dodge the new terminator and also come in contact with the terminator that killed John, who has, since killing John, become integrated into society. He calls himself Carl and has even raised a family.

My review:

So many critics are saying that this is the best Terminator since T2. It’s not. T3 is a much better film than this. First big mistake; killing John Conner. That move alone nullifies the entire series. Remember Alien 3? It wasn’t a badly made film, but it suffered from killing off all the survivors of the second film, which upset fans of that franchise. I mean this isn’t a cheap horror knock off of Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. Where a group of one dimensional nameless entities who survived the previous film and have no personality get killed off. These are iconic characters that fans of their respective franchises have grown to know and care about. Therefore, I say, before I even see any box office, that this film is going to tank. It may have a big opening weekend because of a great marketing campaign, but it will drop off more than 60% in it’s following week. Again, here’s another franchise pandering to woke politics and has to kill the leader of the resistance because he’s a white male, and now, it’s a female that they have to protect. She’s the nameless entity that has no personality in this film. Oh Reyes tries her best given the material she’s inherited. The problem is in the material. She’s one dimensional. She’s also too small, in one laughable scene she’s holding a weapon, that, if it were real, she wouldn’t be able to budge it, the thing is almost as big as she is. Remember in the second Terminator John Conner wasn’t your average ordinary every day dude. He was pretty much an asshole that robbed ATM’s in order to cut school and go to the arcade. But what would you expect from a kid whose mother is locked up in a loony bin and is passed around from foster home to foster home? A complete lack of parental guidance. It’s only after they break his mother out and he realizes that she isn’t nuts that he becomes well adjusted. But here, we learn nothing original about Dani, other than she’s the McGuffin that needs protection, they killed off John Conner for this? Grace and the Rev 9 had potential as they are different from their Terminator counterparts in previous films, but none of that potential is explored in any depth here. Arnold has been reduced to something slightly more than a cameo here. He was the star of four of the previous five films and couldn’t star in Salvation because he was Governor of California at the time. But they did use his likeness in that movie for an effective scene. And of course he can’t be the star of this one because he’s an old white dude and he has to step aside for the ladies. Now I have no problem with strong female leads, as anyone who reads my columns knows, but I do have a problem with disrespecting the source material, again if you read my columns you’d know that. Creating strong female leads is one thing and I’m all for it, but pandering to woke politics just to rewrite franchise history doesn’t sit well with me. But what about the action? Does that save the film? Well, yes and no, Tim Miller gives us some great set pieces and action but it only seems to half work here. Some scenes are exciting, but others fall flat. The plane crash scene so prominent in the trailer did not pick up the pace for me at all. The best part of this film is the chemistry between Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These veterans of the franchise know how to steal the show and were the only time I felt invested in this new experience. It was a smart move bringing Hamilton back as she’s the only character in the film that in any way acts human. Grace is supposed to be a human/terminator hybrid but you wouldn’t know it here. Her moves are mostly robotic and she shows very little emotion, not enough fear or anger at the things that are happening to her and around her. At least Salvation and Genysis took a few chances and tried to be different, but here another terminator comes back in time to destroy a future resistance leader. Even the way he was destroyed was stolen from T3. Meh, I give this one ** (4.6 rating)

SCORE: 2/5

Director: Tim Miller
Producer: James Cameron, David Ellison
Screenplay: David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Billy Ray
Story: James Cameron, Charles Eglee, Josh Friedman, David Goyer, Justin Rhodes, Diego Boneta
Music: Tom Holkenborg
Cinematography: Ken Seng
Production company: Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, 20th Century Fox, Tencent Pictures, Lightstorm Entertainment

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

Author Profile

Kevin Given

Kevin Given has studied with â€œ Longridge Writers Group â€ and â€œ Writerâ€™s Boot Camp â€ a speech/communications major from the University of Maine Presque-Isle/Orono sites. He has created the â€œ Karl Vincent Vampire Hunter â€ franchise which includes novels and comic books. They can be found on amazon, Indyplanet and Kindle. For a limited time you can get digital copies of â€œ Karl Vincent: Vampire hunter â€ # 1 and â€œ Files of Karl Vincent â€ # 1 for free on Indyplanet. Kevin is producing the third novel in the series â€œ Dracula Rising â€ (working title) and developing â€œ Foul Blood â€ into comic book form. Don't forget to check out the YouTube show " Comics: Let's Talk " hosted by Kevin Given