Terminator: Dark Fate

The original 1984 movie's templates are all over every film in the series; but especially this film from the one-liners to the sequences throughout. The prevailing understanding is that this movie is not connected to the rest. But in my opinion after watching it just now; I think it does in some small part. Terminators aren't designed to "detect temporal displacement" Something to that effect though does happen in Genesys when you remember what happens to Kyle Reese before he enters the bubble and goes back in time. Not to purposely bring Avengers Endgame into this review but Tony Stark talks about the Planck Scale and triggering the Deutsch Proposition. The more things change; the more they stay the same from the characters to the final battle. The only thing missing from that last scene where Dani drives off with Sarah; is someone taking her photo as she rides off with a dog in the backseat of the jeep into a forthcoming storm ahead down the road. As for Schwartzenegger and Hamilton; they definitely remind me of Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) and Patrick Stewart (Xavier) in Logan 2017. Old, weary players in one more adventure. But emotionally and psychologically reality and time catches up to Sarah Conner like Wolverine and she reaches a breaking point. Her moment was at that cabin. Wolverine's moment was destroying the pick up truck. I thought it was powerful.

The Kyle Reese stand-in is unnecessarily mean to everyone. Sarah Connor drops F-bombs. Arnie rehashes his role from Terminator 2 (though without any emotional effect this time). That's about it; apparently the writers thought this could carry a movie for 2+ hours. It doesn't work. A lot of the supporting cast, as well as the John Connor stand-in, actually gave really solid performances despite the incredibly weak dialog they had to work with. The very worst acting, unfortunately, comes from Linda Hamilton and Mackenzie Davis -- whom we spend a whole lot of time listening to -- who take the tripe they were given and hand the audience shockingly bad performances to match. I didn't expect much from this, and was hoping it'd be the same kind of amusingly bad franchise bilking as Terminator 3 was. Unfortunately, this movie takes itself so seriously and does just about everything so aggressively poorly that I couldn't enjoy it even on that level.

This is pretty much exactly what I was expecting from another Terminator movie, plenty of action and a decent story. It was nice to see Linda Hamilton back in the series, and I'm always surprised when they find a new way to have Arnold Schwarzenegger appear as a slightly different version of a character he's already portrayed several times. If you're a fan of the series, I suggest giving it to watch, but be aware that there is not really much new to offer from everything you've already seen.