Terminator: Dark Fate
Year: 2019
Rating: R
Length: 128 minutes / 2.13 hours
I’ll admit that Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was a difficult movie to follow. Basically the perfect sequel, this film is generally what we associate with the Terminator franchise. From its plethora of meme-able moments to its fantastic action and visual effects, Terminator 2 set a high bar for any film in the franchise to follow it. While Terminator: Rise of the Machines (2003) tried to tie up the first three movies into a neat little trilogy, most felt unsatisfied with its ending. This is why, almost 20 years after Terminator 2 released, we’re still trying to find that satisfying bit of closure.
Compared to its predecessors, Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) certainly came the closest to achieving this closure. After all, we’ve seen the effects of time travel in the future with Terminator: Salvation (2009) and an alternate reality with Terminator: Genisys (2015). As a direct sequel to Terminator 2, Dark Fate has all the required accouterments of a Terminator movie, including fantastic action set pieces, un-killable antagonists, and a “fast and loose” interpretation of time and the future. Plus, as seems to be the case with every iteration of this franchise, Dark Fate updated the technological apocalypse to be more in-line with what we’d expect based on the technology we currently have at our disposal.
Unfortunately, while Dark Fate is an excellent film in the franchise, it felt a bit like it was making a movie based on a checklist. Re-using memorable lines? Check. Older versions of classic characters? Check. New, advanced Terminator technology? Check. I will give this movie some props for nailing the Bechtel Test, though. Of course, the end of the world isn’t the time to be thinking about romantic relationships with men, so these ladies certainly had their priorities straight. Additionally, moving the rating of this film back up to R felt like the right choice based on the franchise’s origins and likely helped make some of its flashier fight sequences that much better.
The closest we’ll come to Judgment Day closure, I give Terminator: Dark Fate 3.5 stars out of 5.
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