Movie review: Terminator: Dark Fate
"Children look like burnt paper. Black. Not moving. And then the blast wave hit them, and then they fly apart like leaves."
Wow. Yeah, those are pretty downer first lines, which I guess you'd expect from a movie called Terminator: Dark Fate.
The good news is, Sarah Conner (played once again by the fantastic Linda Hamilton), really did manage to stop Judgement Day, and the destruction of civilization by a rogue artificial intelligence called Skynet.
The bad news is, it only led to an entirely different destruction of civilization by a rogue artificial intelligence--called Legion. Now an entirely different terminator, the Rev-9 (played by Gabriel Luna, the memorable Ghost Rider on "Agents of "SH.I.E.L.D."), has arrived in 2019 to kill a young Mexican woman, Dani (Natalia Reyes), because ... reasons.
Luckily, another savior from the future has also appeared: An augmented human named Grace (Mackenzie Davis). The beats seem similar to other Terminator movies, especially the second one, which this movie is a direct sequel of. (Apparently the others happened in a different timeline, which for this franchise is easy to believe). We establish the happy young Dani and her family, Rev-9 shows up, Grace drags Dani to safety, big chase begins.
And then, when all seems lost, we get a bad ass appearance by the bad ass Sarah Conner. And how did Sarah know where to find this new threat? That's the next mystery to be solved, and Sarah isn't going to be at all happy with the solution.
What's that, you say? Arnold what's-his-name? Yeah, he shows up eventually, as a T-800 that's just a little ... different ... from the previous ones.
For the first half of the movie, though, it's an all-girl-action-hour, with three bad-ass women saving and occasionally threatening each other, kicking other ass, and not even bothering with the name taking. I heard one critic complain about the movie being "woke". Yeah, I suppose so. But if I had to go into a fight, I'd take these three along with me, any day.
My biggest complaint with Terminator: Dark Fate is that it seems to make many of the events of the first two movies pointless. Sarah and her family saved the future, but--oops--it's going to be destroyed, anyway. My second biggest complaint is that some of the action sequences were a bit long, but they certainly were attention grabbing.
Rev-9 is a new kind of Terminator, with one particular new skill that's an especially cool development, and its played well by Luna. There are no real complaints about a skilled cast, who I'm sure had to do a lot of emoting toward a green screen. The story is no great departure from previous Terminator movies, but there were some nice twists along the way. It's not the best Terminator movie--that would be the second one--but it's far from the worst, and well worth seeing.
There's something about women with rocket launchers.
My rating:
Entertainment Value: 3 1/2 out of 4 M&Ms. A scene not long after Sarah appears bummed me out, but overall it was lots of fun.
Oscar Potential: 1 out of 4 M&Ms. I don't think so. Loved the special effects, but who doesn't have good special effects, these days?
Hi markrhunter,
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Those sequels never stop, do they. And a Terminator movie without Arnie is a wasted time anyway. Thats what the first Terminator movies lived for - Arnie and the Special FX.
Talking about time travel stories. Lately I'm watching a series on Netflix, called "Timeless", may be you heard of it? Its a rather mysterious story about a secret government project that invented a timemachine. Which then gets stolen right away. It only can go to the past (and return), and obviously the rogue time travellers are using it to change the time line and hence the present. Luckily there is a crude prototype time machine, and a team gets send out to mend things and catch the thief.
Obviously they didn't pay attention when watching Star Trek and Stargate, since they all run around killing people and changing events in the past - and accordingly the present has changed every time they return to their lab. At least they don't get blamed, because only they know that thing are not what they are supposed to be any longer. Although each episode is about a certain historical event (the Hindenburg disaster, the Lincoln assassination, the battle of Alamo ect.), the series is more about telling a bigger background story.
Over all, its not bad to watch. It reminds me a bit of the old series "Time Tunnel", if you remember that. Long ago...
Oh yes, it's a favorite of Emily's and mine--I wrote about it back when it first came on. Timeless got unfortunately canceled, but they did a TV movie to wrap everything up. I liked the fact that if they screwed up, it really did change time. Very well done, both in specific episodes and the overall arc.
I used to watch "Time Tunnel" as a kid, and I've caught a couple of episodes recently. Definitely similarities!
You wrote about Timeless? I don't recall that, but I remember us talking about series that got cancelled early, and that it sucks. So they will never solve this "Rittenhaus" riddle? Oh man... well, I may watch the rest of the episodes anyway, just to see how much more they screw up the time line. :)
And there is plenty more on Netflix, so I won't run out of options. I might return to watch "Norsemen", the somewhat different Viking saga. Those Scandinavians have a special kind of humor for sure...
Here is a typical scene from Norsemen, I'm not sure if I showed it to you already:
Or this one:
It's possible I posted it before I got on this site, but it's up on my regular blog:
https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2016/10/tv-reviews-good-placetimeless.html
They do solve the riddle to a degree: The network gave them a TV movie to wrap it all up after they decided to cancel the show. Well worth it!
Yes, but I would probably have read it on deviantart then. Well, never mind. I must have a look if Netflix has this TV movie as well.
There should be a law prohibiting that TV series get cancelled prematurely. :)
The new terminator sucked so bad.
I can’t believe James Cam directed it. Total insult to the fans what they did with storyline
I liked it a lot as a standalone movie, but it really did make a lot of what happened in the first two movies seem meaningless.
Yea and those movies were classics so it just killed it for me. Plus it was stuffed with a lot of SJW points that didn’t add to the story. I’m glad u enjoyed it. Great minds can disagree
It no surprise, sequels tend to be that way. Look at other franchises, 99% of the time they deteriorate with every sequel. The second one is perhaps still not too bad, but then it goes down hill. But the Hollywood producers rather put their money into a known successful concept, than risking something new.
It's all about the money. My wife and I rarely watch new shows from the beginning these days--we wait to see if they're likely to get picked up for a second season, or at least if they'll get a wrap-up.
That can save some frustration, I guess. Only, I don't usually think of that when I pick something to watch. I read the description "timetravel" ect., so I started watching.
Well, yeah. Time travel. Gotta check that one out!
Hello Hello!
Most movies have good special effects but what matters is the plot, the development and the end of the movie. I don't have much hope lol
Greetings from Venezuela
True, special effects are easier than less expensive than they used to be. But overall I really enjoyed this movie--even if I might be the only one!
Hi. I liked Terminator but the first movies. Now there is a lack of emotion, a lack of script, a lack of content and a lack of new and innovative effects. It has been a pleasure to have read. Regards @markrhunter
I thought this movie did pretty good in all those areas. Not great, but pretty good! The argument about a lack of content can be made, though--at its base all the Terminator movies have pretty much the same plot.