Movie Review: The Future Is Female in "Terminator: Dark Fate"

At this rate, we won’t get a decent Terminator sequel before the actual end of humanity.

If a restaurant hadn’t been good since, oh, George H. W. Bush’s presidency, how often would you go back? Would you keep giving it the benefit of the doubt for (*checks watch*) 28 years?

I guess that’s how beloved 1984’s The Terminator and 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day really are: they’ve generated three decades of goodwill, despite the sequels serving up s*** sandwiches.

I won’t attempt to explain how the once-simple (if paradoxical) plot of the original Terminator duo was complicated by Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, Terminator Salvation and Terminator Genisys, nor will I get into the ways in which each sucked (all sucked in different ways!), or the equally complex ownership of rights that have eluded series originator James Cameron for yonks.

That’s because returning co-producer Cameron, in his egotistical wisdom, has basically fired those offshoots out of the canon, and called the latest sequel, from Deadpool director Tim Miller, a true third entry. It has a scaled-back plot, and, in a novel twist, centers on a trio of diverse female protagonists. That even includes Linda Hamilton, star of T1 & T2 and, erm, Cameron’s ex-wife.

Alas, it’s still not very good. It’s at least better than Genisys, which was better than Salvation, so at this rate we could finally have an entertaining and satisfying new Terminator flick in about 28 years’ time, providing humankind is even around to appreciate it by then. I’m nothing if not an optimist!

For those entirely unfamiliar with Terminator lore, Hamilton’s Sarah Connor was originally hunted in 1984 by a robotic T-100 (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), which was sent from the future to stop her from giving birth to the future saviour of civilisation. The T-100 failed, and Connor even went to the additional trouble of stopping that particular robot-generated apocalypse from ever happening. Thanks!

But don’t plug your Google Homes and Amazon Alexas back into the power outlet just yet. As we learn in Dark Fate, another apocalypse takes place in the future, set off by a different chain of events. Those robots have sent back an evolved Terminator, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna), to kill young Mexican woman Dani (Natalia Reyes), who’ll prove to be a thorn in the side of their uprising down the track. Thankfully, Connor—who has spent the years since T2 training her body to take down any other travelling Terminators—sees the similarities in Dani’s situation, and arrives with heavy artillery to save her. However, this is no job for mere mortals. They’re lucky to also have Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a biologically-enhanced super soldier from the future, and another familiar and heavily-accented old model of Terminator to help them fight back.

The script and story is credited to six different dudes, which really makes you wonder if this couldn’t have been generated via artificial intelligence instead. Despite all that wasted manpower, it has a clean structure: a chase that ends with a stand-your-ground fight. Unfortunately, Miller just can’t give it the momentum it needs. The screenwriters also have to take a tedious detour and bend over backwards to justify the presence of Arnie in this timeline, though, I’ll admit, he is intrinsic to the Terminator brand, as much as the pounding score ("du dum dum da dum"). He gets the best laugh lines, delivered with authentic deadpan rigidness, but the real star is Hamilton, who doesn’t miss a step as the resilient and resourceful Connor. Even if Dark Fate becomes a bit of a snore, you’d say it’s worth it alone to see her back on the big screen, shotgun in tow.

Davis, a proper action star, and Reyes, a surprising revelation, deliver heartfelt performances, and the film is never finer than when the three leading ladies are needling each other. That also makes it feel second-rate compared to the similar-in-structure feminist Halloween reboot from 2018, which had way more to say about survivor’s guilt and trauma. It’s also not helped by unconvincing special effects and a villain that always looks computer-generated, missing the tangible threat of previous models. Next time, bring back Robert Patrick's T-1000, you cowards.

Dark Fate gently prods America’s current immigration crisis, with the villainous Rev-9 dressing as the equivalent of an ICE officer (commentary!). Ultimately though, it doesn’t have much new to say, or to even add to a franchise that is already bursting at the seams with unnecessary addendums. These days, with Terminator, "I’ll be back" isn’t so much a reassuring promise as it is a disheartening warning.

2.5/5

Terminator: Dark Fate is now in Australian cinemas. It’s rated MA15+ for strong violence.

Header Image: Twentieth Century Fox