Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
(Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Oh wow, it finally happened – for the first time since Terminator 3, the series somehow turned out an instalment that didn’t have substantial shortcomings. Too bad that it had to essentially redo the first film and add legacy characters for show. After the dismal Salvation and dull Genisys, expectations couldn’t have been lower for Dark Fate – and accordingly, the film pretends (again) that everything after the second film hasn’t happened. (Don’t worry – the next film in the series will do the same.) This time, we’re back to basics, as a young woman is chased down by machines, albeit with a few twists – The characters from Terminator 2 have aged and are still around, while the future has changed but a different thread remains. While there are a few new faces here, none can really pretend to become the new face of the series – Mackenzie Grace is particularly bland in a role that should be far more striking. The result is a redo of the first Terminator slathered in legacy sauce, with timelines and various kinds of androids-from-the-future all competing for attention. While well executed by director Tim Miller, the overall impact is similar to Terminator 3: It’s clearly in the same lineage, it doesn’t make any major mistakes… but it still feels like lavishly produced fan fiction rather than an authentic follow-up. Having both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton reprise their roles certainly reinforces this impression of the series being unable to let go. But that’s kind of baked into the very idea of continuing this series – as long as the commercial imperative is there, Skynet will be rebuilt, replaced or redone and other robots will be sent back in time to target other humans. There’s a Sisyphus-like exasperation built into every new film in the series and IT WILL NEVER END.