Terminator: Dark Fate was a big bomb at the box office back when it was released to theaters in November of 2019. And that’s a shame, because I thought the film was very good. Perhaps it was the film’s extremely dark opening, where they kill off John Connor within its first five minutes, that turned some people off. This is understandable, since the previous film that DF is supposed to be a direct sequel to, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, is now considered a classic of the SF/action film genre. And for DF to coldly kill off one of T2’s main characters must have made its detractors think: “what was the point of wiping out everything that had gone down in T2?”
But the Terminator series has always been about the underdog. Each Terminator movie--at least the better ones--deal with a disparate group of people who come together to try and prevent a nightmarish dystonian future from ever happening. And killing off John Connor was the right move, because DF eschews the whole bullshit “chosen one” storyline that runs rampant in way too much of science fiction and fantasy these days. And I’ve always been such a big fan of this series because of the notion that a regular, everyday person--like a shy waitress from the first Terminator film--can take up arms to fight for the survival of humanity.
The first two Terminator films, along with Dark Fate, remind us that, in the end, each and every one of us matter, and that what we do matters. Our actions have consequences, and so we must choose wisely. And while Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) may have suffered a horrible loss, as she herself points out in DF, Skynet--the evil AI that starts the war against humans--has finally been taken down for good. And, despite what happened to her, Sarah chooses to keep right on fighting.
But as determined as the heroes in the Terminator films are to prevent Armageddon, their enemy, now known in DF as Legion, is just as determined to start it. Mackenzie Davis (Blade Runner 2049) is superb here as Grace, an augmented human warrior from the future who is sent back in time to protect the latest target by a Terminator: Dani (Natalia Reyes), an unassuming auto worker who lives in Mexico. The Terminator this time is a new model, the REV-9 (well played by Gabriel Luna), which has both the shape-shifting abilities of the T-1000, along with a scary skeletal body that recalls the T-800. And speaking of the T-800, Arnold Schwarzenegger is also back, joining the new disparate team that comes together to fight for the future once more.
While I would have preferred for James Cameron to return as director, he is back here as a producer. But DF is ably directed by Tim Miller, who also directed the first (and best) Deadpool film. In Miller’s hands, DF is a relentless, gripping fight for survival, and with the welcome return of Linda Hamilton as a seasoned, battle-hardened Sarah Connor, it finally feels like a worthy sequel to T2. There are even some nice call backs here to the first two films, such as Dani watching a group of children in a playground (which echoes the recurring nightmare that Sarah had while in the mental hospital in T2).
The main joy of home video for me has always been that it offered movies a second chance to be discovered--especially if they’re box office “bombs” that need to find a more sympathetic audience. I’m happy to see Blade Runner 2049, another exemplary SF sequel, slowly build a reputation as being just as superior a film in its own right as the original Blade Runner. I’m hoping that a new audience will also find and enjoy Terminator: Dark Fate in the same way. But even if there are no more Terminator films on the horizon, I still take solace in having the original Terminator trilogy finally being complete in a satisfying manner. --SF
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