After Terminator 2, there were many attempts to continue the series with varying levels of success. However, when James Cameron announced he was returning to the series as a producer and furthermore, continuing the story from where he left his series off, I was very excited to see where this film franchise would go.
‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ starts with a jolt and from there on the action is just go go go! It tells the story of Sarah Connor, now much older, who helps another visitor, Grace, from the future to protect a woman, Dani, living in Mexico City. Grace is a human with the abilities and strength to take on a Terminator. Though Sarah and Grace don’t get on, their shared ambition to protect Dani means that they make a good team. Naturally, no Terminator film would be complete without Arnold Schwarzenegger and his character, who I won’t spoil, plays a massive role in the film.
The addition of a new cast I felt was a good move because potentially it could catapult the series forward in the future. Gabriel Luna who plays the villain isn’t as iconic as Robert Patrick, and I don’t know if it was just me, but I almost couldn’t see him as a villain anyway. Arnold’s character was my favourite and the way his character was developed was pretty inventive and not something I could have predicted.
So now we come to the crux of the issue with the film. Though the first scene does an incredible job of throwing us off our feet, the rest of the film feels a bit ‘been there, done that’. Sure the villainous corporation in the future goes by a different name, but their plan seems to be pretty much the same. I think ultimately this series is struggling because we now live in an age where perhaps the idea of a rogue A.I. isn’t so alien.
I have to say the action of the film was probably one of its biggest saving graces. It doesn’t start slow and then build up, it’s very much explosions and gunshots from the very beginning. The cinematography was pretty good and I liked the way that the new Terminator was shown. Overall, I liked the film and I enjoyed that it took me back to what made the original two films so special, but it did largely feel like a remake, rather than a progression.
Rating:
Story:★★★
Acting: ★★★½
Cinematography: ★★★½
Music: ★★½
Enjoyability: ★★★