Terminator: Dark Fate - Great Twists and a Major Fix

Before I provide my take on Terminator: Dark Fate, I wanted to mention that co-blogger Donna Frelick has announced her new podcast site where she provides movie reviews in her insightful, entertaining and very professional narrative style. If you'd like to catch up on some of the more recent releases and/or Oscar contenders on her site--My Moviehouse, My Rules--check out her Friday blog here:  Podcast Launch has Steep Trajectory 

I'd recommend checking out her Lightning Round as a sampler of five recent movies in quick-fire succession. She convinced me I had to see two or three that were on my "maybe" list.

Now, on to my review.

Although the ads didn't do enough to get me into a theater, I was intrigued enough to catch Terminator: Dark Fate as a recent offering on satellite pay per view. I'll try to keep this free from major spoilers while still explaining why the film appealed to me, but for obvious reasons I'll have to stay in the vague territory for a few elements.

I admit I've had some major disenchantment with the Terminator franchise in some of the after-the-original forms, especially when replacing well-loved characters with new actors. Like Star Wars: Solo it just wasn't the same. Terminator: Dark Fate was actually an enjoyable, action-packed view with a nod to a couple of the original players. Although it didn't exactly have a happy ending, the finale probably was necessary--maybe even required to tie up some loose ends if the franchise is ever planning another in the series.

Terminator Dark Fate movie poster is the
property of the stuidio and/or artist.

So, my first big mark in the plus column was the return of Sarah Conner (not a big spoiler to anyone who's seen the trailers or the posters). Yes, Sarah is back--in all her previous bass-assery glory and with three times the attitude. And as the cherry-on-top, complete with an iconic opening line.

I loved Linda Hamilton's reprisal of her famous role but this time in a different future timeline. This twisted-strands-of-time element lends a certain beauty to the story line--but it's the same element that makes you scratch your head trying to unravel all the paradoxes at the same time.

Wait! So Sarah Conner was able, in this future, to have prevented the atomic apocalypse and the deaths of 3 billion people--but there are still certain repercussions from that original time track? Whoa! Try processing that in all its mind-bending complexity. I'm not sure whether to classify it as a genius twist or a deeply flawed plot hole, but at any rate, I'll just run with it.

Sarah is not the stars of the show in this installment. That honor falls to Dani--a Mexican citizen--and Grace, who is...well, you'll have to discover that part for yourself, but she's every bit Sarah's match and her nemesis at the same time. Dani is a young, somewhat naive woman who, in this timeline, appears to have taken on the yoke of Sarah Conner's original fate--she's destined to save the world by way of her unborn offspring, IF she can survive. And she's very ill-equipped to do so as the story begins. Like Sarah, she evolves through her experiences into someone tougher, smarter and more prepared to take on her role. Again, IF she survives.

The good entities are trying to get Dani to a place near Laredo, TX, where some mysterious transmissions with valuable information have been sent to them. But getting to Texas involves a border crossing that throws a major wrench in the works when they're captured and detained, which then leap-frogs into mayhem and panic as the killer closes in. There's a surprise waiting for them in Texas--or really, maybe it's more of a surprise for the audience (provided the trailers haven't clued you in already to this twist).

Much like the original, the meat of the plot is that of a desperate game of cat and mouse with an enemy from a different future who appears invincible--a particularly single-minded assassin with an arsenal of executioner's weapons at his disposal, including the world's IT.

The chase portions are just as suspenseful and edge-of-your-seat as those in the original movie, though the situation gets more and more outlandish as the hunt continues, until it goes IMHO beyond the normal person's capacity for suspension of disbelief. But for those who like explosions, mortal battles in death-defying situations, firestorms, hurtling shrapnel, crashes and characters getting the proverbial crap beat out of them--you'll love it.

Although the story didn't end on a particularly happy note--there was a twist at the end that in my mind "fixed" what the original franchise broke. Turns out what Sarah believed to be true about Dani wasn't the case. And the reveal made this story resonate with me in ways that the original--which came out long ago and far away in the mid-1980s--did not.

If you don't mind all the over-the-top carnage and destruction, Terminator: Dark Fate is worth watching just for this twisty revelation. Definitely an evolved sci-fi with a message for our time.

As always your parsecs may vary, so if you've seen Dark Fate feel free to share your thoughts in comments. If you want more of the (spoiler-alert!) meat of both the plot and characters, Donna has done a concise thumbs-down review on Spacefreighters Lounge, which you can find here:
Terminator Re-Start is a No Go

Have a great week!

TERMINATOR RESTART IS A NO-GO

EPISODE 512, in which I don my Film Curmudgeon Hat yet again for a spoiler-y review of TERMINATOR: DARK FATE. Feel free to a) pop some popcorn or b) run for the hills. I’ll wait.

[Brief interlude for Jeopardy theme music.]

 

The best part of TERMINATOR: DARK FATE: the heroines.

I’ve been a fan of the TERMINATOR movies since Linda Hamilton battled the seemingly invincible AI robot played by Arnold Schwarzenegger back in 1984. The first two films, written and directed by James Cameron (AVATAR, ALIENS, TITANIC, etc.) are SF classics, and set a high bar for the film and TV sequels that followed (a bar that wasn’t always cleared).

Altogether, though, the TERMINATOR franchise created a screen canon that made SF sense, one that entered the common consciousness of people who hadn’t even seen the films. Almost every SF fan can tell you the premise of that canon: a man from the future is sent back in time to find and save Sarah Conner from an AI robot assassin (the Terminator). It is vital Sarah survive because she is destined to bear and raise the future leader of the human resistance to the sentient machines that will soon take over the Earth and attempt to eliminate humanity. That future leader’s name is John Conner, and he is the one who sends the man back to save his mother. The man, of course, turns out to be his father, who eventually dies fighting the Terminator. (It’s time-travel. Don’t think too much.)

The sequels involve storylines with John and Sarah at various times after he is born, both before the AI apocalypse and after. And, up until this latest entry in the TERMINATOR franchise, they have all fit into the canon, that is, they all made sense according to the premise I just outlined. Not so TERMINATOR: DARK FATE.

[SPOILER ALERT. Remember, I warned you earlier.]

In the first few minutes of this new film, also written by James Cameron, and directed by Tim Miller (DEADPOOL), we see in flashback that the Terminator somehow found John and Sarah in their sanctuary in Mexico and killed John at the age of about 12. Presumably this means a new resistance leader is needed for the future, so a young Mexican woman (Dani, Natalia Reyes) is tapped for protection by a cybernetically-enhanced human soldier (a female, this time, Grace, Mackenzie Davis) against a yet-more-intimidating AI robot (Gabriel Luna, meh). Sarah Conner (Hamilton), who has been finding and killing Terminators on the regular, led by mysterious texts signed “for John,” shows up to help the new savior and her cyborg protector. They are eventually led to the texter, who turns out to be our old Terminator nemesis (Schwarzenegger), who has developed an almost-human conscience over the years.

Action/mayhem/smashing of vehicles ensue until the good guys win, but not without some sacrifice, yada, yada, yada.

All this is entertaining enough, until you stop and think: if John Conner had been killed as a child, there would have been no one to send that man back from the future to warn or save Sarah Conner in the first film. She would have gone blithely on about her business until the original AI villain (Skynet) caused the first apocalypse. That’s the thing about time-travel and the consequences of messing with the timeline. No John Conner, no resistance. No resistance, no one to go back in time to find Sarah Conner, or create John Conner or, eventually, to destroy Skynet. That was the premise of the first film, indeed of the whole franchise. Take John Conner out of the equation, you have to restart everything

 Much has been made of the fact that James Cameron wanted to restart the storyline with this film, taking up from where he ended it with TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991). I have no problem with that scenario, but even Cameron must know that you can’t kill John without resetting the entire timeline back to zero. That means Sarah Conner has no significance in the new timeline. That also means Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger have no roles in the new film. If he was going to start over, he should have had the courage to go all the way. 

I also have no problem with rethinking the idea of “woman as mother and protector of future male leader of the resistance,” transforming it into “woman herself as leader of the resistance.” However, Sarah Conner has long been held up as a role model for kick-ass SF heroines, her family role notwithstanding. I think it’s dangerous to assume the job of bearer and nurturer of future leaders is “lesser” somehow, especially when the person doing it is one tough, um, mother. 
 

Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) SF's toughest mom.

I can understand the powers that be are less concerned with the screen canon of the franchise and more with the box office. After all, they’re looking to fill seats with a good action film. TERMINATOR: DARK FATE mostly succeeds on that level, though we’ve seen many of its tricks before. But a young viewer new to the franchise is really going to wonder why those old people (Hamilton and Schwarzenegger) are even part of the story. And going back to watch the earlier films is not going to help them figure it out. 

Sorry, but this one is a NO-GO. 

Cheers, Donna