The Gonzo Wolf

I’m going to cheat. Here’s the link to my Terminator Genisys review that explains my history with the franchise. click here

Let’s dive right in by seeing what the fine folks at Wikipedia have to say about this film (please donate to them if possible):

Terminator: Dark Fate is a 2019 American science fiction action film directed by Tim Miller. It is the sixth film in the Terminator franchise and a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), ignoring the events of the intervening sequels. The film was written by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, and Billy Ray. The film stars Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger reprising their roles as Sarah Connor and the Terminator respectively, and also features Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes.

The film is set 25 years after the events of Terminator 2, when a malevolent artificial intelligence known as Legion from an alternate future, sends a highly advanced Terminator, the Rev-9, back in time to 2020 with instructions to kill Dani Ramos, whose fate is to become the leader of the Human Resistance in the future. The Resistance also sends Grace, an augmented soldier, back in time to defend Dani, who is also joined by Sarah Connor and Skynet‘s T-800 Terminator. Principal photography took place from June to November 2018 in Hungary, Spain, and the United States.

The film was released theatrically in the United States on November 1, 2019, by Paramount Pictures. It received mixed reviews from critics, and grossed $261 million, losing $123 million, making it one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time.

The Rev-iew:

The year was 2019. Society was knee-deep in the first Trump administration. All the legacy sequel film franchises were coming to an end with the biggest one, Rise of Skywalker, releasing in December. Terminator Dark Fate released a month prior. The pandemic was about to hit.

The bubble popped.

We entered the portal.

I don’t know what the hell happened, I’m just throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks, but nothing was the same after Rise of Skywalker. NOTHING. It gave permission for all sci-fi to suck, even through Terminator DF released six weeks prior. That’s what happens when you get a bunch of convoluted time-travel writers in the same room during the great Disney multiverse craze.

It’s only been six years, but this film aged horribly. The villain spends a portion of the film dressed as an ICE agent in Texas. No bullshit.

This film predictively follows the formula for every other franchise film released in that year. Let me see if I can get it straight:

IP + Young & Female / racial or modern political undertones x legacy actors on their way out the door = death of just about everything I loved as a child.

Then, time passes. New stuff sucks, so you go looking back at the things you shunned prematurely throughout the decade. Suddenly, Rise of Skywalker really wasn’t all that bad. Maybe some of the lightsaber duels were cool, and maybe all the Palpatine scenes were shot like an old monster movie. That’s neat…

But then there’s Terminator Dark Fate.

Are you telling me the man who helmed Deadpool and the Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy couldn’t stick the landing with one of the most culturally relevant films of the 1980’s?

This sixth movie was a direct sequel to the science fiction masterpiece Terminator 2: Judgement Day, pretending that Rise of the Machines, Salvation, and Genisys never took place. The great 2019 Ret-Con phase began with Halloween, and was fairly successful in a gimmicky sort of way. Once every IP with a decade worth of bad sequels saw redemption was possible, they jumped at the chance. This film was less of a jump, and more of a controlled fall.

Terminator Dark Fate is by far the worst, most pointless of all those franchise films. It tries to build emotion through unfounded relationships, giving the main protagonist the will and knowledge to be the chosen one at exactly the right time. No training; just trauma, with just the flip of a switch.

At no time did I have much of an idea of what was going on, why it was happening, and what the repercussions were regarding the rate of success/failure. Like many of the other films released at that time, it felt as though it were comprised of multiple films from multiple writers, then combined into a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie that expects you to get emotional over the theatrical death of THE Gen X childhood action hero.

That’s what they get, though. That’s what they get for digging up these Hollywood fossils, reciting the sacred incantations, and squeezing the final drops of blood from eighties pop-culture. It was beautiful once; the eighties. If you were lucky enough to be there, then you know there’s no way to recreate it. No amount of de-aging software can take “Ju-On” out of Linda Hamilton’s throat. Ribbit.

The protagonists from the older and younger generations get into a vehicle together and drive away into the credits. Please. Please. Please. Please tell me they’re not driving toward their own streaming series.

2/5