Now I had never previously seen a Terminator film after 'T2', but I watch enough film criticism on YouTube to know that the biggest problem the franchise faced after the sequel is that there really wasn't anywhere left to go. Now of course it's fairly easy to come up with all sorts of ideas to continue to franchise but the problem is that 'T2' resolved all the major plot lines, it and the original 'Terminator' act as a coherent whole, the story is done. Subsequent sequels subverted the resolution of 'T2' in an attempt through various means to bring SkyNet back as a threat. 'Terminator: Dark Fate' had the moderately clever idea not to do that.
Ignoring all previous subsequent films in the franchise 'Terminator: Dark Fate' is a direct sequel to 1991's 'Terminator 2'. It jumps events forward from the end of that film in 1997, to an awkward coda in 1998, and then on to 2020. Here the threat is not 'SkyNet' but a subsequent military computer system called 'Legion' which like it's now alternate reality predecessor eventually unleashed a war of extermination on men by way of a mechanized army.
Embracing a kind of determinist reading of the future, event's repeat with changed players. A resistance in the 2040's send a cybernetically enhanced Mackenzie Davis back in time to protect a youngish Natalie Reyes, whose survival is deemed pivotal to humanities hopes in the future, from a new Terminator played by Gabriel Luna. What I liked most about Luna's Terminator is that he is polite, operating on the 'get more flies from honey' philosophy, instead of going head on against copes, the boarder patrol, and the military, he attempts to integrate himself into them, and is nice about it.
Linda Hamilton returns to the franchise after 28 years, her son Connor was killed by an unaccounted for 'back up' terminator a year after the events of the second film. Hamilton's Sarah Connor has spent most of the decades subsequent fighting other robots sent from the future, regularly tipped off to the time and place of their appearing by a mysterious allie who contacts her by text messaging.
Conner joins forces with the two new leads in an attempt to save the future of humanity again, and comes to realize that despite all her sacrifice she is unremembered in the future she helped save. This is an interesting idea, there is some pathos there, but as an action franchise this is undermined some by giving Hamilton lines like 'I kill Terminators, and then I drink myself unconscious'.
Sarah's adventures over twenty plus years might have made for a more interesting story, such as under what circumstances she earned the unwavering loyalty of a military Colonel who helps the group acquire both an EMP and air transportation.
The most ridicules part of this movie, which mixes a few intriguing concepts with basic character types, uninspired dialogue, and over produced action sequences is the return of Arnold. Schwarzenegger plays that back up Terminator we see kill young John Conner in the brief 1998 sequence near the beginning of the film. Now cut off from a future that doesn't exist, and with no further orders to carry out, this Terminator proceeds to grow a conscience, feel bad for what he did to Sarah and act as her mysterious contact, his systems being able to track time distortion waves from incoming time travels several days before their actual materialization.
In addition to this the Terminator now going by the name 'Carl' has a wife and step son (who he saved from a previous domestic abuse situation) and is in the draperies business outside of Laredo, Texas. Now that is the Terminator film I really want to see, the domestic life of a killer robot drapist.
It is the moments where 'Dark Fate' touches on the existential, or just goes in bizarre directions, that make this movie watchable. Otherwise it's jus forgettable Michael Bay type stuff. Still the improbable and odd ball story decisions earn this film a borderline recommendation. **
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