This is a spoiler-free review.
After the disappointment of Terminator Salvation and the cancellation of the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series, it seemed the Terminator franchise was destined to remain a cash grab for Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, Terminator: Dark Fate, which at long last sees the return of creator James Cameron and Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, firmly reestablishes this as always having been Sarah’s story, as well as boldly charting a new course for the time-traveling saga.
Well, not that bold: the film takes a leaf from Star Wars‘ book by placing an old protagonist in the story of a new hero whose journey echoes their own, and in this case Sarah and Arnold’s Terminator tag along with Natalia Reyes’s Danielle “Dani” Ramos, and her cybernetically augmented protector Grace (Mackenzie Davis), who are being pursued by the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna), a Terminator with a mimetic polyalloy skin that’s capable of acting independently from its endoskeleton.
However, the film is considerably more strident in rejecting the idea of a chosen one or messiah, making it drastically clear from the beginning that in this new, post-Terminator 2 timeline where Judgment Day was delayed until well after 1997 – and Skynet has given way for the newer, more advanced AI threat Legion – that old heroes must also step aside for (but also step up to help) a new generation who will save the world.
As a result, the movie bravely has Schwarzenegger absent from the majority of its runtime, letting Dani, Grace and Sarah’s story breathe. It’s refreshing to see an action film revolve primarily around three terrific actresses – Hamilton brings a John Wayne-level of deadpan to the world-weary Connor; Davis is intense and manic, like a female Michael Biehn; and Reyes is vulnerable and sympathetic, yet filled with an inner strength that Dani can’t see but is plainly visible to us the audience.
When Ahnuld reenters the picture, he’s an utter delight: his take on the Terminator this time round is basically, “What if the one from Terminator 2 didn’t die?” (explaining his grizzled appearance), and it’s hilarious. He and Hamilton clearly enjoy behaving like a bitter, old married couple, but there’s also an added layer of poignancy here, as you learn about the whole life this T-800 has built since the ’90s. At one point, Schwarzenegger almost breaks the fourth wall playing on one of his most iconic lines, heavily implying this is his swan song: if it is, then it’s not a bad one.
Not bad? Well, director Tim Miller’s hardly James Cameron: few filmmakers are, but knowing Cameron co-wrote this makes the gap between his vision and the film’s realization all the more apparent. The cinematography is solid (with lots of slow-mo to help you appreciate the action), but unspectacular, making you long for the neon nightmares of the first two films’ imagery.
Likewise, while the film thoroughly earns its R-rating with buckets of blood and f-bombs, its brief moments of body horror can’t compare with the evocative and visceral effects Stan Winston crafted on both of Cameron’s films. The film’s most spectacular effects have to be the deaged Hamilton, Schwarzenegger and Edward Furlong’s appearances in flashback, and that’s the opening scene.
To be fair, there has been so much Terminator in the past 20 years, that this can’t help but struggle to feel really fresh, despite the emphasis on new characters and the older Sarah: if you’ve seen the previous films, you can probably predict a lot of the story and action beats. There are attempts to spice things up, like staging fights between the Terminators (and Davis’s cyborg) in the air and underwater, but you’re still going to be watching virtually indestructible characters grabbing and tossing each other around a lot.
Where Miller and Cameron’s minds meet is in understanding the Terminator franchise is not a Luddite story, that it is not a story of man vs. machine, but about machines programmed to emulate the worst of humanity’s impulses. Which brings me to the film’s biggest surprise: Gabriel Luna doesn’t play the Rev-9 like Schwarzenegger or Robert Patrick, he portrays him as being so charming it’s unnerving. At one point, he even waltzes into an incarceration facility on the Mexican border by posing as a military veteran: he’s the embodiment of a paranoid, military–industrial complex that’s gone beyond our control. We’re constantly reminded throughout the film phones are just spying devices, and in 2019, it seems the Terminator has become the friendly-looking algorithm that gathers data on you.
Ultimately, this is hardly a perfect, endlessly rewatchable classic like Judgment Day, but it’s a solid action thriller that’s a worthy extension of Cameron’s morals and preoccupations (including an appreciation for Latin American culture: sincerely, there are a lot of Spanish subtitles). Fans who miss Sarah Connor Chronicles will likely appreciate this best as a feature-length episode of that series (complete with the original Sarah Connor), and be left clamoring for more from this new chapter. I myself am intrigued for the first time in years to see another sequel – and of course, I can’t wait to read the comics that will hopefully delve into this disrupted timeline.
Dark Fate? More like Terminator: Redemption. (Yes, I know they probably couldn’t use that because of the Terminator 3 tie-in game, darn it.)
