Much has been made about the fact that Terminator: Dark Fate sees the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the series that launched their careers. Indeed, most of the marketing around the movie has proudly announced it as James Cameron's return. My first thought upon seeing this was, "hasn't James Cameron said for years there was no story left to tell? Hasn't he implied the only the reason to come back would be for the money?" Despite this thinking, I gladly paid the money to see this latest sequel, as the Terminator franchise is, even with a few lesser entries, one of the greatest science fiction franchises ever. Plus, director Tim Miller previously proved he could successfully handle fun action with Deadpool, so I figured Terminator: Dark Fate had a chance at being special.
Tim Miller does indeed bring the fun action he brought to Deadpool to Terminator: Dark Fate. While nothing is as impressive as what Terminator 2 brought to the table, the action here is mostly spectacular eye candy. The first act chase is one of the most spectacularly shot sequences out of any film this year, the fights intensity and blood that was missing from the previous PG-13 sequels, and Arnold Schwarzenegger proves he's still the best action star alive at the age of 72, even if he doesn't do any extraordinary stunt work here. Miller clearly had the pure intentions in trying to make a worthy sequel. There are plenty of times where one can see the potential in the great sequel this could have been.
Unfortunately, while the directing is fairly solid, the storytelling is mostly underwhelming at best and just plain lazy at worst. Whenever it seems like the movie will bring new story ideas or characters to the franchise, it immediately backtracks into simply repeating elements from previous entries, most notably Terminator 2. Every big plot development seems like something the franchise has done before. Almost all of the jokes are just variations on one-liners from previous movies. Even the musical cues are ones we've heard one too many times before. The movie introduces potentially interesting new characters, though they are ultimately props to move the rehashed story forward. In theory, having Linda Hamilton return as Sarah Connor should be a treat, but she, like the other main characters, spends so much of running time being chased by and/or reacting to the bad Terminator that there's no real sense of growth or character development. Sarah Connor could have been removed from the story altogether, and the film wouldn't have necessarily been much better or worse than it is now.
Maybe I'm being too hard on Terminator: Dark Fate. For the sixth entry in a series, it's very entertaining, it has plenty of eye-popping visuals, and Schwarzenegger doesn't disappoint even when he could be sleepwalking through the role at this point. But ultimately the movie never proves to have a reason to exist beyond making everyone involved more money. There's not enough new story here to quite justify its existence, no matter how solid the directing from Miller is here. I doubt Miller director's cut will ever be released to the public, but I'd love to see if this was a stronger, more character-driven film at some point. In its current form, Terminator: Dark Fate is somewhere in the middle quality-wise when ranked with the other installments. It's nowhere near the best, though it's certainly not the worst. 'Dark Fate' is a decent sequel, yet it's also proof that the franchise has run out of gas. 6.5/10
Tim Miller does indeed bring the fun action he brought to Deadpool to Terminator: Dark Fate. While nothing is as impressive as what Terminator 2 brought to the table, the action here is mostly spectacular eye candy. The first act chase is one of the most spectacularly shot sequences out of any film this year, the fights intensity and blood that was missing from the previous PG-13 sequels, and Arnold Schwarzenegger proves he's still the best action star alive at the age of 72, even if he doesn't do any extraordinary stunt work here. Miller clearly had the pure intentions in trying to make a worthy sequel. There are plenty of times where one can see the potential in the great sequel this could have been.
Unfortunately, while the directing is fairly solid, the storytelling is mostly underwhelming at best and just plain lazy at worst. Whenever it seems like the movie will bring new story ideas or characters to the franchise, it immediately backtracks into simply repeating elements from previous entries, most notably Terminator 2. Every big plot development seems like something the franchise has done before. Almost all of the jokes are just variations on one-liners from previous movies. Even the musical cues are ones we've heard one too many times before. The movie introduces potentially interesting new characters, though they are ultimately props to move the rehashed story forward. In theory, having Linda Hamilton return as Sarah Connor should be a treat, but she, like the other main characters, spends so much of running time being chased by and/or reacting to the bad Terminator that there's no real sense of growth or character development. Sarah Connor could have been removed from the story altogether, and the film wouldn't have necessarily been much better or worse than it is now.
Maybe I'm being too hard on Terminator: Dark Fate. For the sixth entry in a series, it's very entertaining, it has plenty of eye-popping visuals, and Schwarzenegger doesn't disappoint even when he could be sleepwalking through the role at this point. But ultimately the movie never proves to have a reason to exist beyond making everyone involved more money. There's not enough new story here to quite justify its existence, no matter how solid the directing from Miller is here. I doubt Miller director's cut will ever be released to the public, but I'd love to see if this was a stronger, more character-driven film at some point. In its current form, Terminator: Dark Fate is somewhere in the middle quality-wise when ranked with the other installments. It's nowhere near the best, though it's certainly not the worst. 'Dark Fate' is a decent sequel, yet it's also proof that the franchise has run out of gas. 6.5/10