Release Date: November 1, 2019
Cast: Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna, Diego Boneta
Director: Tim Miller
Studio: Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, 20th Century Fox, Lightstorm Entertainment
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Spoilers: Low
IMDB| Rotten Tomatoes | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★ ½ ☆☆
Linda Hamilton is BACK BABY! In this sequel to the possibly the finest action movie ever made, T2: Judgment Day, the action takes place 20 years after the heroes have averted Judgment Day and skips the other three sequels, and media. So, they did succeed.
SkyNet doesn’t come online… and yet… new Terminators are showing up. They’re after someone new, a young woman in Mexico City, and it’s up to another future soldier to defend her. Time is a flat circle and all that.
While Terminator Dark Fate is, without a doubt, the best Terminator since Judgment Day. Perhaps all these movies were missing was Linda Hamilton, but whatever the reason, she put the wild formula of future tech, killer robots, heroes with grit and guns together in such a fine way. Granted, it is, especially in the second half, a collection of loosely connected action scenes, and by the time it really starts to lose the plot you don’t care, you are already so deep along for the ride.
In averting Judgment Day, Sarah and John Connor created a new timeline (or so the creators choose to refer to Dark Fate as opposed to Genisys or Salvation) and with it means that perhaps the robot takeover didn’t happen until later… 2020 maybe? But in allowing for a few more decades of technological growth, the new Terminator, the new future soldier are allowed to have a bit more punch.
Mackenzie Davis plays Grace, this movie’s future soldier sent back on bodyguard duty, and, as expected, she does a great job. It’s Mackenzie Davis, for crying out loud. While she can’t really match T2’s Linda Hamilton (especially difficult when Hamilton is sharing the screen with her) she holds her own.
Linda Hamilton growls out every line, she has the emotion of a person waging a one-woman war for the future. Gabriel Luna is very much giving off Robert Patrick vibes from T2, and his new Rev-9 model of Terminator gives our heroes plenty to handle.
Perhaps the noticeably weak moment of the movie is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800. Arnold has the role down pat, it’s more the story choices used for him. They are interesting, (what does a Terminator do without a purpose?) but a little thin, though it doesn’t really detract from the film. It’s just the beginning of the loosely connected cool action spectacle.
I’m biased. T2: Judgment Day is one of my favorite movies of all time. I even liked Terminator: Genisys well enough. As a fan of the franchise, I’m very happy with what we got in Dark Fate. It’s far from perfect, but it’s still a great robot action flick.
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