Tim Miller's "TERMINATOR: DARK FATE"
Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald
I’ve enjoyed all the Terminator movies. The action is great, I love how they play with time travel, and the characters are always interesting, especially the women.
DARK FATE isn’t just a sequel, it’s a clear-the-decks reboot to what follows Terminator 2. Action sequences are superb, two new interesting characters are introduced, this time the story originates in Mexico City, and — best of all — we get to see Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenneger again.
Despite massive timeline shifts Hamilton’s Sarah Connor is still the obsessed wild eyed revolutionary bent on destroying Terminators sent back from the future. Arnold’s T-800 has retired from action and has taken up as a family “man” while running a small business as he assimilates the ways — and emotional makeup — of humans.
The story elements are, however, familiar. Grace, an “enhanced” human (Mackenzie Davis) is sent back from the alternative future where an alternative to Skynet is once again enslaving humans. Her task: protect young Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) from another extraordinarily lethal liquid metal shape shifter (Gabriel Luna).
Naturally all paths cross as the action moves from Mexico to Texas with an extended and desperate action-and-escape sequence occurring at a massive detention facility — complete with “cages” — on the US side of the border.
With modern special effects we’ve come to expect great action sequences. Elsewhere many I find boring but the ones here are beautifully edited, pulse pounding, outrageous, and they focus less on massive collateral damage than on what the main characters are doing. That we get to see both Arnie and an older but not necessarily wiser Sarah Connor in action is wonderful icing on the cake.
Is there really enough new here to attract new audiences especially those not born when the first two Terminator movies were released? I’m not sure. Many of the story elements introduced by the Terminator series have become commonplace in movies and TV series. The two younger characters, Grace and Dani, are well fleshed out and interesting, but will younger viewers resonate to seeing two senior citizens in action? We’ll see. I know I did.
Review copyright (c) 2019 by Dennis D. McDonald
