Terminator: Dark Fate – Review (Potential Spoilers)
“I’ll be back!”
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton are back and fighting for the future of mankind!
Skynet was defeated with the prolonging of John Connor’s life… Yes, prolonging, Sarah Connor wasn’t successful in protecting her son for long. The machines were adamant in seeing that their future would happen. Having escaped to Mexico for a short time The Connors were eventually found and the Terminator was able to carry out its mission. The future that Sarah had tried so hard to prevent was changed, but the rise of the machines was inevitable. With John Conner being dead a new leader of the Resistance has been selected for Termination.
Terminator: Dark Fate starts off with non-stop intense action for about the first 30 minutes. Dark Fate has some really well choreographed fight sequences! A super enhanced human from the future named Grace (Mackenzie Davis) is sent back to protect the new hope of the Resistance, Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), from a new Terminator (Gabriel Luna) who has already murdered Dani’s family. Dani has no choice but to trust her new protector. The Duo isn’t alone long when Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is mysteriously sent to help. Sarah has spent her years since Johns death killing Terminators that have apparently continually been sent back from the future. Grace is able to trace the mysterious text messages to the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) that killed John but has since grown a conscious about life and mankind.
Terminator: Dark Fate was a little predictable when it came to the plot and writing. In the time and age that we are in it felt a little heavy handed that the leader of the resistance didn’t have to give birth to a man, but was in fact, Dani all along. I kind of saw that one coming and wasn’t the big reveal that the creators were trying to set it up to be.
Linda Hamilton felt a little rusty on screen as Sarah Connor where Arnold Schwarzenegger was fantastic as the robot with a heart of gold. It was amazing to see the flashback scene executed so amazingly! The CG was near perfect and felt like the footage had genuinely been shot in the 90’s.
The ending of both the dramatic fight scene and the actual end of the movie felt almost identical to the end of the original Terminator and T2, it was a touching although cheesy homage.
Overall I give Terminator: Dark Fate a strong like and must see. I would say it’s my third favorite installment of the franchise behind the original and T2. The creators did a great job with wrapping up the Connor storyline while opening the possibility to more Terminator movies.
