Terminator’s Fate Is Not So Dark

The Stream: Same old Terminator story with new faces.
The Big Screen: Explosions upon explosions! Action Galore!
The Final Bill: Popcorn movie with a convoluted storyline no one cares about. Think Miss Bala with robots.
– S2S
Director: Tim Miller
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Rating: R (some unnecessary cursing and violent)
Runtime: 1 hour 57 minutes
Notable Trailers: 1917 (shot in a very cool way), Ford v. Ferrari, Midway, Doctor Sleep, Black Christmas, The Rhythm Section and Like a Boss

We are back *Terminator voice*. This weekend we are able to give you a review of Terminator: Dark Fate. But first things first.

Let’s catch you up on Terminator history. This movie takes place more than 20 years after Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) met and survived the original Terminator (1984) and then prevented judgment day years later (in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)) (forget about all the other Terminators between ’91 and ’18). We find out what she did essentially altered history and the fate of the human race. Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is living a simple life in Mexico City with her brother and father when a new, highly advanced and murderous Terminator – a Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) – travels back through time to hunt and kill her. Dani’s survival depends on her joining forces with two heroines: Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an enhanced super-soldier from the future, and an old, battle-hardened Sarah Connor. We follow Rev-9 as he tracks Dani; and, he leaves a trail of destruction on the way. Luckily for them, they find T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from Sarah’s past and recruit him to help them save the day.

Now that you have the history and a simple version of the plot, let’s give you the good and the bad.

There is tons of action in this movie. There is so much action that some of the scenes were repetitive and could have been cut to shorten the movie. Nevertheless, if you love explosions, constant chasing and fighting, this movie is right up your alley. Forget any of the plot this movie force feeds down our throat and just sit there and enjoy the action. Surprisingly, this movie has a couple (2 or 3) scenes that actually made me laugh out loud – maybe because they were unexpected or maybe because they were actually that funny. Either way, the comedic relief was appreciated as the movie just feels constantly heavy. Arnold really stole the movie and quiet as it’s kept made the movie bearable. Lastly, I enjoyed the women’s empowerment underlying message and highlight of Mexico in this movie. Now for the bad.

The movie felt 3x longer than it actually was. The movie didn’t break the 2 hour mark, but I found myself checking my watch and the pre-teen next to me clearly went from “enjoying this movie” to “get me out of here” by the last 20 minutes. You would think the action would quell those feelings, but ultimately, this is the same exact “Terminator” action and moves we’ve been dealing with for 35 years. The producers could’ve given us something new to make us “ooo” and “ahh”. So, the action was good but nothing we haven’t seen before.

Lastly, this storyline, that they harped on constantly, was just convoluted for no reason. The idea has already been fleshed out in two movies and yet for some reason the writers decided to try to confuse the audience and make the movie seem more deep than it really is. This movie is quite shallow and obvious. Don’t try to trick us as viewers with a basic and predictable storyline when we’re clearly only there for the action and explosions.

Long story short, I know the Terminator fans out there will enjoy this movie, but to everyone else, this is a perfect movie to watch on FX in six months or so. You won’t have missed anything. This movie is basically Miss Bala with robots chasing her instead of drug lords.

With that said, stay tuned to Stream to Big Screen…

We’ll be back. *Terminator voice*