Terminator: Dark Fate

“My name is Sarah Connor. August 29th, 1997, was supposed to be Judgement Day. But I changed the future, saved three billion lives. Enough of a resume for you?”

Sarah Connor

My first experience of The Terminator franchise was at Universal Orlando with Terminator 2: 3D – Battle Across Time back in 2012. That being my first introduction severely enhanced my first viewings of The Terminator and Terminator 2, because I remember in the ride the T-800 was the good guy, but was thrown off by him being the antagonist in the original film. Adding even further to the experience is in the beginning of Terminator 2 with the scene where the T-800 and T-1000 are both approaching John Connor at the same time in the mall and I had no idea who was going to get to him first and was pretty sold that the T-800’s intentions were the same as in the original, a truly mind-blowing film moment for me. I remember enjoying Terminator 3, the action was solid from what I can remember, I haven’t seen it in a while, and the ending I was extremely hyped up for Terminator: Salvation, and that was my first devastating disappointment in the franchise. I so strongly disliked that movie, I was excited with the release of Terminator: Genisys where it was supposed to erase the events of Terminator 3 and more importantly to me, Salvation. The opening scene of Genisys had me hooked right away with an extended look at the dark and bleak future war and bringing the end to Skynet, the rest of the movie after reflecting on it for some time is just as bad as Salvation in my opinion. Then comes along the 6th installment in the franchise, it is also the 3rd attempt at a “Terminator 3” (more if you include the short film for the T2:3D ride or The Sarah Connor Chornicles) as this one also promised to erase the events of 3 and onward. The trailer looked pretty good, James Cameron was saying it’s the best Terminator film since Terminator 2 but that didn’t really do much for me because he had also said the same thing about Salvation and Genisys. Regardless, I still went into the theater fairly open minded.

This movie lets you know right from the opening titles lets you know that this is a very direct sequel to T2: Judgement Day, it’s very unnerving and pulled me right into the film. It doesn’t take long for this movie to get started, and the action in this movie is absolutely phenomenal, I could for sure tell this was thanks to Tim Miller’s directing and definitely my favorite action of any 2019 film so far. Even though the first action scene is featured pretty heavily in the commercials, I still felt very edge of my seat the entire time and was grateful that most of the action in the trailers ended up being from that first action scene so it held a lot of surprises for acts 2 and 3 of the film. I was hooked very early on in this movie and I kept thinking back to how Genisys had accomplished the same thing early on, but the big difference is that this movie kept outdoing itself over and over and holds a similar pacing to the two original Terminator films with a slower second act to make you really crave and anticipate the action packed finale rather than constantly feeding you action and leaving you tired by the end.

Comparable to Star Wars and The Force Awakens in terms of their stories being extremely similar, Terminator: Dark Fate does contain some of the same beats that Terminator 2 brought to the table but uses them more as subtle callbacks rather than story crutches. It’s not quite as severe as Star Wars, but in terms of pacing and set ups for certain set pieces they have similarities that I felt added to the film rather than subtracted. We are also introduced to some new characters, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is our “Sarah Connor” of the film, Grace (Makenzie Davis) plays our enhanced “Kyle Reese,” and Gabriel Luna plays the Rev-9, an extremely advanced and deadly Terminator model which is almost a combination of a T-800 and T-1000. All of these new characters I thought added with their performances, I never had a dull moment with any of the characters, and that being said, bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger is always a bonus, but that’s not the best part. Linda Hamilton returning as an older, grittier, but just as deadly Sarah Connor is exactly what this franchise needed. She added an insane amount to the story and her performance in this film was by far my absolute favorite, but it’s hard to describe why I loved her performance without giving away any plot details.

The score for this film was intense and strong, I had forgotten in was by Junkie XL until the credits began to roll. From the pounding metallic heartbeat of the Terminator theme to smaller moments with Dani, it was interesting and had a pretty wide variety to it. I particularly enjoyed the Rev-9’s theme, as I compared it to the moments in Man of Steel soundtrack by Hans Zimmer when Superman and Zod are fighting through Metropolis, there are also some really pretty and emotional moments to the score as well. VFX were great, particularly on Arnold as the T-800 endured some intense Terminator vs Terminator action with a healthy blend of both prosthetics and CGI to complete the overall worn look that we’ve come to love from these films. The Rev-9 had a few moments where the effects weren’t as great as I think they could’ve been, but it wasn’t bad enough to where I felt distracted or pulled from the film because of it.

If you’ve read my review on Blade Runner 2049, you’ll know that I don’t like it when nudity is included in films, I was worried going into this one because part of the rating is “partial nudity” but reading a viewers guide before I went in allowed me to enjoy this film without having to wait until the home release so I can skip parts when needed. If you’re worried about it as I was, it’s very minimal and nothing we haven’t seen in the previous Terminator films, just a butt or darkened side view right after the time travel sequences towards the beginning, no more than 10 seconds at the most. That is honestly my only real complaint about the film but I’m grateful because it could’ve been more than it was.

I went into this movie cautiously optimistic but was prepared to be disappointed for the third time in a row when it came to this series, but I left extremely satisfied with this film. The action was grand and set pieces were each different enough from each other so I didn’t feel like I was watching the same scene repeated times. The pacing of this film like I said is similar to that of the original two James Cameron installments and causes it to not only look, but to really feel like a Terminator film again, and I hope if we get another one (which we will), that they bring Tim Miller back again. Terminator: Dark Fate gets a 8/10 from me, I highly recommend this movie if you’re a fan of the series or even if you just need a great action movie, and I’ll probably be seeing this one again before it’s theatrical run is completed. The statement, “the best Terminator film since T2” is absolutely accurate. If you saw this film, what did you think? Did you like a particular story decision made early in the film that I’m not going to say for spoiler reasons? Or did it really throw you off and cause you to feel differently of this film? Also how would you rank Dark Fate against the previous installments in the franchise? Let me know in the comments below!