Terminator: Dark Fate

A sequel to 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Terminator: Dark Fate follows Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor as she teams up with a genetically-enhanced soldier (Mackenzie Davis’ Grace) from the future to protect a woman (Natalia Reyes’ Dani) being hunted by an advanced cybernetic machine (Gabriel Luna). Filmmaker Tim Miller does an effective job of immediately luring the viewer into the proceedings, as Terminator: Dark Fate kicks off with a solid opening stretch that boasts an impressively exciting (and coherent) action sequence set within the confines of an automobile-assembly plant. (It is, as such, fairly easy to overlook the disappointing decision to undo Terminator 2: Judgment Day’s triumphant conclusion.) The movie’s downward trajectory, then, is triggered by a midsection focused around two often astonishingly underwhelming heroes, and while Hamilton steps into the shoes of her iconic character with able ease, Terminator: Dark Fate’s lack of compelling protagonists makes it more and more difficult to work up any interest in or enthusiasm for their exploits – with the late-in-the-game introduction of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Carl unable to compensate for Davis and Reyes’ bland work here. There’s little doubt, as well, that Terminator: Dark Fate‘s progressively lackluster atmosphere is compounded by an excess of dark, CGI-heavy action set-pieces, with this especially true of an absolutely interminable third-act stretch revolving around an incomprehensible battle within a dimly-lit airplane. And although the film concludes with an admittedly decent fight between the surviving characters, Terminator: Dark Fate has long-since cemented its place as just another disappointing followup to James Cameron’s legendary creation.

** out of ****