Tag Archives: Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Movies

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) a (almost right on time!) Review

I’ve spent the last few posts talking about Terminator: Dark Fate (let’s refer to it as TDF from here on out) and now, having seen the film, offer my opinion on it.

To begin: I very much recall going to the theater way, waaaaaaaay back in 1984 to see The Terminator. While viewers who watch the film today may not realize it because of the inevitable passage of time and cribbing of ideas, seeing the original film when it was originally released was a ferocious experience. It was, to my mind, the first time the action and horror genres were merged.

Once the film got going, it felt absolutely relentless, and despite what we now see as an obvious low budget and dodgy effects (again, this is the product of the passage of time), The Terminator essentially made director/writer James Cameron’s career. He would go on from this film to make the equally tense action/horror Aliens and from there Terminator 2 (which many, but not me, consider the very best Terminator film) before eventually becoming a box-office champion with Titanic and Avatar.

The Terminator franchise left James Cameron’s hands following T2, and he had no part in either Terminator 3, Terminator: Salvation, or Terminator: Genysis. Neither did he have a part in Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles TV show, which I found quite good.

Unfortunately, the Terminator films that followed T2 were not that good, IMHO. Almost all of them had good elements, but the overall works simply didn’t carry each film into “great” movie territory.

Recently, the Terminator property reverted to James Cameron and with Terminator: Dark Fate, he’s “back”, though this time with the story and production credits while Tim Miller (Deadpool) directs.

If you’ve read my previous postings, it is worth noting that in making TDF, it was decided to create a story that actively ignores all the Terminator works that came post-T2. So going into the film, audiences should try to wipe their minds clean of all those works and stick with the first two.

The movie begins with a rather shocking development that reminded me in many ways of the opening of Aliens 3. I don’t want to give too much away here (I will talk about it toward the end, so BEWARE SPOILERS!) but if you’ve read online anything about the film, chances are you already know what happens at the very beginning of the film…

We then move to Mexico and, specifically, car factory worker Dani Ramos (Natalie Reyes, quite good), and the arrival -natch- of two visitors from the future, Grace (Mackenzie Davis, quite spectacular as an “augmented” human) and the evil Gabriel, aka REV-9 (Gabriel Luna, quite good), the robot sent to the future to take out Dani.

The story thus far isn’t all that different from all the other Terminators that came before: You have your “ordinary” person being alternately hunted and protected by two people who have come from the future. The early action set pieces are quite spectacular and Gabriel’s evil robot, while essentially still incredibly similar to Robert Patricks’ T-1000 from T2, has the added trick of being able to split into two Terminators at one time.

The opening action sequence terminates (ouch) with the arrival of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton, looking as grizzly as can be but dangerous and smart assed to boot). The three form an uneasy alliance which eventually takes them to you-know-who (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and together the four of them form an even more uneasy alliance in trying to take on and destroy Gabriel.

Watching TDF, I realized how much better the film was compared to those that followed T2. Again, I don’t feel all those films are horrible, but clearly the people behind the making of TDF spent the extra capital in developing the relationships between the characters so that when we got to the ending, it was something of an emotional gut punch, at least to me.

TDF still falls a little below T2 (my second favorite Terminator film behind the original) yet rises IMHO far above the others and, for someone who was there when the first came out, felt it was almost a love letter to the fans of the series, even if it didn’t necessarily move out of the general Terminator comfort zone, story-wise.

Still, I liked it quite a bit and would easily recommend it to anyone interested. If you worry that these old-folks simply can’t do it in an intense action film, let me say they handle themselves quite well. I fear, however, that people are not giving this film a chance (it has been noted it underperformed despite generally good critical and audience reactions) because of the run of so-so Terminator films, including the not so-very-old Terminator: Genysis.

And that’s really too bad. If I could go back in time, maybe I’d convince the makers of those sequels to lay off and, by the time TDF shows up, people might be more willing/eager to give it a shot.

TDF is an easy recommendation for me. A film that, while not necessarily reinventing the Terminator-wheel, nonetheless respects the original two films and provides us with some genuinely good thrills and action set pieces, along with a story that is also quite good (if familiar) and some very welcome humor.

Go see it with an open mind… or at least without thinking about the last three Terminator films that followed T2.

Now then…

SPOILERS!!!!!

BEWARE!!!!

Still here?

Ok, you’ve been warned.

TDF opens with a post-T2 Sarah Connors and a young John Connor (both actors were digitally de-aged) resting from the end of T2.

Then, the T-800 (a de-aged Arnold) appears and kills John Connor.

It’s a rough scene, especially given we had a full film in T2 whose whole reason for being was to keep John Connor alive. However, in the course of that film, the future was changed and Skynet was destroyed.

What TDF does, somewhat cleverly but still kinda/sorta grimly, is show us that John Connor’s death no longer matters. That the T-800 that kills him turns out to have completed its programmed mission for a future that no longer was going to come into being.

Thus, the T-800 we see later in the film is that same robot, only he spent the next 20 plus years adapting to humanity and realizing what he did was terrible.

It’s an interesting notion and one that I felt made the relationship between Sarah and he that much more intriguing but… man, what a bummer of a concept! As I said, it was not unlike Alien 3, which opened with the deaths of two very likeable characters who survived the massacre of Aliens.

Still, for me not something that ruined the film.

Your mileage, as they say, may vary!

Movies

Terminator: Dark Fate Box Office…

It’s the Monday after the release of Terminator: Dark Fate (let’s refer to it as TDF from here on, OK?), and it would appear the film underperformed and might even be, as Jason Guerrasio writes in businessinsider.com, an outright bust…

Terminator: Dark Fate is a bust at the box-office, taking in only $29 million

I’m still curious to see the film but it is something of a surprise -or maybe not?- the film underperformed. Note that the original estimates were that TDF would rake in either in the high $30 to low $40 million for the weekend. The $29 million it managed is actually quite close to the opening take Terminator: Genysis did in 2015 when it scored $27 million.

Which kinda/sorta indicates that this seems to be roughly where current audience interest lies with regard to Terminator films.

It’s a sad fact of life that time marches on and while when I was young the original Terminator and Terminator 2 did incredible business and were very much in the public eye, the years have passed and (sadly) Arnold Schwarzenneger and Linda Hamilton are much older now, which may be a great negative to the younger audiences out there.

An admission: When I first saw the trailers for TDF, my first reaction -and I’m more than willing to accept this is a sign of my own shallowness- was surprise at Linda Hamilton’s aging.

I fully accept the fact that it makes me sound shallow (like I’m somehow immune to the passage of time!), but the reality is that film has a way of “freezing” people in time if they leave the public eye.

Arnold Schwarzenneger has aged too, obviously, but he’s been in the public spotlight with other films and, in my mind, I know what he looks like these days. Linda Hamilton, on the other hand, has kept a relatively low profile since Terminator 2. Looking over her IMdb listing, while she’s continued to work over the years, her “biggest” appearances post T2 were in the TV show Chuck (which I never watched) and a turn soon after the release of T2 in the film Dante’s Peak. Otherwise she’s appeared in relatively smaller works and often as a voice actor in animated features.

Which means that seeing her in the trailers for TDF was the first time since the 1990’s I’ve had a look at her.

So we have two older actors in what is, sadly as well, a “young person’s” genre: The action film. And, further to that, a film in a franchise which, let’s face it, has now reached its sixth theatrical film (and we’re not even counting Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles TV show).

Given that Terminator: Genysis just came out a few years back and only did so-so business, it might in retrospect be that people are a little tired of the whole Terminator franchise and what you can make on these films is roughly in/around that amount.

Having said all that, I remain interested in seeing TDF and plan to do so soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Linda Hamilton may no longer be the striking, young kick-ass warrior we saw so memorably in T2, but I’m intrigued with the notion of seeing her play an older, hopefully wiser warrior, whose scars -internal and external- give her that additional edge.

In reading the reviews of the film, it seems that while a slight majority of critics and audiences reacted favorably to the film, there nonetheless are many who feel TDF is a miss. That despite the return of Linda Hamilton, the film is yet another lackluster Terminator sequel.

Potential audiences out there are wiser to critical views of films and these negative reactions may have swayed many to not bother showing up.

Regardless, I will see the film.

Let’s see how I feel about it…

Movies

Terminator: Dark Fate and Continuity…

Over at io9.com, Germain Lussier interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger regarding his just released film Terminator: Dark Fate.

Terminator: Dark Fate, Interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Terminator: Dark Fate is the sixth film in the Terminator franchise. It follows the original Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3, Terminator: Salvation, and Terminator: Genysis.

What’s interesting about this film is that it effectively obliterates the “continuity” established in all Terminator films following the second. In other words, the story presented here ignores -and effectively contradicts/negates- all the stories presented in the other Terminator films that followed T2. In this case, it means even Terminator 3 and Terminator: Genysis, which featured Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, are no longer considered part of the Terminator story line present in Dark Fate.

And Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t care that this film ignores those others.

I find that attitude… refreshing.

Even though he was involved in the films and was effectively their star, he’s not so attached to those previous movies to feel that they should somehow be considered cannon. He’s more than willing to work in this latest film without feeling like he should be defending the others.

I suppose it isn’t a terribly big leap to make. Mr. Schwarzenegger is no doubt making a great salary and working on something he likes. He seems long past caring about all these details and more focused on the here and now compared to the past.

But for those who do like the Terminator films which came post T2, I don’t see much of a problem there either. If you like those films, guess what? They’re still there. They haven’t been burned up or erased from your digital libraries (provided you have them there). They can still be enjoyed, should you want to enjoy them.

And with a franchise that involves time travel and alternate realities, what better series than the Terminator to so easily put those films into these alternate realities?

Movies

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)… any good?

Incredibly, there are suddenly a handful of films I’m genuinely curious to see in theaters. Will I get a chance to? Well, that’s a whole other story.

Still, I’m reading reviews of some of those films that are either released or set to be released and, over at rottentomatoes.com, one of the films I’m curious about, Terminator: Dark Fate, now has 35 -count ’em 35– professional critics’ reviews. Check it out here (the count will surely go up, so if you’re reading this in the future, don’t be surprised to find a higher number of critical and, eventually, audience reactions):

Rottentomatoes.com: Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

So, as of this moment, the 35 critics offer an average rating of 60% positive for the film.

Not superb, but not too bad.

The most worrying reviews note the film seems to be almost a remake of Terminator 2, which I have to admit makes me very nervous. I thought the original Terminator was a superb film and rightly put director James Cameron and actor Arnold Schwarzenneger on the map. However, I felt the film, which many people absolutely love, was ultimately a very sleek piece of work but not, again IMHO, as good as the original Terminator. In fact, I consider the original Terminator one of the very best horror/action hybrid films ever made.

Still, Terminator 2 wasn’t a bad film and I was hoping we’d get some decent/good Terminators afterwards. I thought Terminator 3 was a decent enough film but ultimately couldn’t quite match up with the previous two. Terminator: Salvation likewise I thought was only OK and, when all was said and done, wasn’t much more than a mild and forgettable time-killer. I thought the Terminator: The Sarah Connors Chronicles, the TV show based on the movies and starring a pre-Game of Thrones Lena Headey was far better than it had any right to be and its season 2 cliffhanger was incredible… alas, the show was cancelled and the cliffhanger’s resolution would never be dealt with. Terminator: Genysis, the most recent Terminator film, started promisingly IMHO but its last act was a mess.

In sum, there’s some good (T1 and T2, Sarah Connors Chronicles), and a lot of not so very good when it comes to the Terminator franchise.

Still, I have a fondness for the concept and in looking over the reviews so far posted, the general consensus among the various critics who do like the film is that it is far better than the many theatrical sequels to the Terminator films post Terminator 2.

So, yeah, I’ll certainly curious to see it, given the fact that James Cameron is once again -for the first time since Terminator 2!- back on board as producer and one of the writers.

I’ll catch it.

If I can!