TERMINATOR: DARK FATE

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B

And here we have yet another franchise, which once represented a leap forward in movie making, “wiping the slate clean” of later installments of the film series and just pretending they didn’t exist, relegating them to “alternate timelines.” This has already been done several times over the past decade, from Star Trek to Superman to Halloween. At this point, the practice is so common it practically qualifies as a bandwagon.

So now Terminator has jumped on it, with Terminator: Dark Fate presenting itself as a direct, 28-years-latere sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It ignores the events of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (which was . . . fine), released in 2003; Terminator Salvation (2009); and Terminator Genisys (2015), which was the first of these films I never bothered watching thanks to its diminishing returns. I would have skipped Terminator: Dark Fate as well, but for its hook: the direct sequel to what was by far the best and most successful film in the series, and the return of badass heroine Sarah Connor, as played by Linda Hamilton.

The future those original Terminator movies never envisioned, however, was one ruled by comic book movies. When not even Star Wars has the cultural caché it once had—ironically, thanks to flooding the market with five movies in five years, Marvel-style—what chance does a sixth Terminator movie have?

Not much, unsurprisingly: box office returns are already disappointing. This would mean more if the movie were actually great, but it’s not. It’s fine—honestly, about as good as the long-forgotten Rise of the Machines (remember all the chatter about Arnold Schwarzenegger reviving the role as a transparent means of re-entering the cultural consciousness in the early days of his bid for Governor of California?)—but it needs to be better than that to make any meaningful, lasting impact. The days of massive success for a movie like T2: Judgment Day are long gone.

It’s easy to compare Rise of the Machines from 2003 to Dark Fate, because Dark Fate essentially replaces it as an alternate “part 3.” The only edge Dark Fate has over it, though, is that Linda Hamilton returns, she’s even more of a badass than she was in Judgment Day, and now she’s 63 years old. Her presence, and Hamilton’s deadpan delivery as a no-nonsense maternal figure who also happens to be ruthless, makes Dark Fate far more fun than it ever would be otherwise.

And that’s the thing about it: Dark Fate is undeniably entertaining, if by turns also cheesy and fundamentally lacking in logic. I have two particular points of contention with the logic, the first of which is how Arnold Schwarzenegger’s presence is played out and explained. He plays yet another Terminator, somehow aged thirty years even though he’s a robot, whose motivations here run completely antithetical to the canonical rules of the universe of this franchise, and it makes no sense. He’s not even a “protector” Terminator here, so the idea that he would develop some sense of independence without outside intervention (as happens in Judgment Day) simply doesn’t hold up. I suppose you could argue that Skynet—who no longer exists in this installment, not even in the future—became self aware, so why not a Terminator? Except that all Terminators are Skynet, even those stuck in a past whose future has been changed so Skynet no longer exists. Now it’s “Legion.” Are you following this?

Anyway! That brings me to my second point of contention: the “protector” sent to keep the young heroine out of harm’s way this time around is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an “augmented human.” Grace not being a robot herself—albeit with robotic elements grafted under her skin—may seem like a fresh take on the role, except practically speaking, it sure seems like a step backward from what once amounted to near-indestructible Terminator vs. near-indestructible Terminator. Maybe in this new alternative future Sarah Connor created, they never actually got around to making “protector” Terminators. We can rationalize anything if we try hard enough!

By the way, spoiler alert! John Connor is dead now. He is dispatched early on in the narrative of this film, a flashback to the late nineties, in a matter of minutes negating everything done in Judgment Day to stop it. I guess that’s one way to explain the continued absence of Edward Furlong. There is a new young person fated to be the leader of the future, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a young woman from Mexico City. Side note: one of the few uniquely compelling elements of Dark Fate is how downtrodden Latinos and illegal border crossings are woven into the plot. Another is that the future “savior” is now a woman, as opposed to some woman’s son.

It’s often said that movies are only as good as their villains, and on that point Dark Fate stands on questionable ground. Gabriel Luna presents as a similar villain to Judgment Day’s Robert Patrick, but nowhere near as sinister, with a much more wholesome look about him. Also, again this Terminator can appear as any human it touches, which means it appears as other characters so often, Luna’s cumulative screen time is not all that long.

There’s also the legacy of James Cameron movies representing huge leaps forward in special effects technology, of which Judgment Day was a prime example (followed by the likes of Titanic and Avatar). Not one subsequent Terminator sequel has come even close on this front. In fact, in sharp contrast to when Robert Patrick melted into mercury-like metal and wowed viewers, we watch Diego Luna morph into a slicked black substance reminiscent of oil and we think, I’ve seen better. In Cameron’s defense, he did not direct this one (Deadpool’s Tim Miller did), but he did return for the first time as producer, and also gets a story credit. Frankly, writing was never one of James Cameron’s strengths.

In spite of these many criticisms, though, it all comes back to Linda Hamilton. Without her, I would happily dismiss Terminator: Dark Fate outright. If you were a huge fan of the first couple of Terminator movies, Dark Fate will provide some closure and some satisfaction the other subsequent sequels couldn’t. It’s the fifth time Arnold Schwarzenegger has appeared in these movies (the one exception being Terminator Salvation), and his very presence feels shoehorned in just as an excuse to reunite him with Hamilton (who comes in second by appearing in three of them). It can’t be denied, though: it is fun to see them together onscreen again. Dark Fate is dark and preposterous and sometimes dumb and cheesy, but I won’t lie: it’s never not fun.

Uneasy allies bast away at a common enemy: logic in action movies.

Overall: B