Having been four years since “Terminator: Genisiys,” the franchise has been dwindling down on quality after “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” and with “Terminator: Dark Fate” being out it would’ve just been another film in this stale franchise, however that wasn’t the case. The film generally has been a surprise and decent direction in the franchise.
“Terminator: Dark Fate” was released on Nov. 1 and is the sixth film in the franchise, but takes place after the second film essentially reconnecting the third, fourth and fifth film series.
The film takes place 22 years after the events of “Terminator 2: Judgement Day,” where Skynet has been taken care of thanks to the T-800, Sarah and John Conner.
After a last-ditch effort by Skynet, they send another terminator that killed John and completed their mission. That event changed the future where it is not Skynet trying to take over humanity, but a new artificial intelligence called Legion.
Legion sends in a Rev-9, a new liquid shifting Terminator, while the human resistance from the new future sends in a cyber-genetically enhanced soldier by the name of Grace to locate a young woman named Dani.
Grace’s mission is to protect her while the Rev-9’s mission is to terminate her.
Along the way, both Grace and Dani come across an older Sarah Conner, who has been hunting terminators all her remaining life, and Carl, an older T-800 terminator who was the same terminator who killed John.
They would have to work together to destroy the Rev-9 terminator and save the future.
The plot feels a bit the same as the first and second film, but after the other three sequels having terrible plots, it’s understandable as to why they went back to the basics for these movies.
However, long-time Terminator fans wouldn’t like the plot of this film as it changes the entire franchise drastically with gaining new characters and replacing old ones like the new “Star Wars” films.
The acting in this film is adequate and everyone gave it their best performance when it came to playing their characters.
The two actors that did their job really well are both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Linda Hamilton reprises her role very well when implementing Sarah as she plays an older version of the character.
The Rev-9 was the good villain and an intimidating one at that, with it being hard to take down and having it not stop until its mission is complete.
Also seeing Schwarzenegger play the T-800 again was enjoyable, as there are a lot of nice and funny scenes with him as well as some callbacks and themes from the previous Terminator films.
The CGI in the terminators were great though at some parts the Rev-9 looks low quality at times, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker as it was only a quick second, but even that the CGI looks nice.
All in all, this is a satisfactory film and the best film that the franchise has had since “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.” As a Terminator fan, it’s recommended to go see this film.
