Terminator: Dark Fate is BACK!

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

Terminator: Dark Fate was the best Terminator movie since Judgment Day. It was action-packed with great CGI, well shot practical effects, and hands down the coolest terminator in the franchise. Gabriel Luna as the REV-9 was awesome. Terminators were sold as an infiltration unit, but they stuck out like a sore thumb. Arnold was a walking murder machine who would not blend in anywhere except a gym, Robert Patrick was better in terms of appearance, but still acted like a robot, and Kristanna Loken looked like a supermodel and had knives for hands for almost the entire movie. Nothing in Terminator: Salvation counts because that movie is garbage and Jason Clarke doesn’t count in Terminator: Genisys because he was human first, then terminator. Luna held conversations, looked normal, changed clothes and transitioned between environments seamlessly. He could have just murdered his way into every situation, but he only entered kill mode when he saw him target, a young Mexican girl Dani, played by Natalia Reyes. I thought Reyes was good, but she was constantly outshined by her co-stars, super soldier from the future Grace, played by Mackenzie Davis, and the returning Linda Hamilton. Hamilton in particular stole the show, with her dour take on a modern Sarah Connor. This core cast was great and did an excellent job of conveying a story of survival and updating it for modern times. The movie surprisingly addressed how current technology would make tracking someone much easier for a terminator, so Luna never had to look up every Ramos in the literal phone book. And I had a blast watching this until there were about 40 minutes left, and the movie took a sharp turn to mediocrity. Arnold’s character in this movie was awful. He played a different terminator who fulfilled his mission and lived a happy family life selling drapes in Texas. Seriously. That was his character. It was supposed to be funny but it did not match the tone set by the other characters. His insertion was jarring and changed the movie from a fun and exciting action movie, to a cheesy action movie that is trying to be funny and heartfelt. Fortunately the tonal change was not enough to ruin the movie, because after 20 minutes of Arnold hamming it up, the climactic battle happened and lived up to expectations. Arnold was by far the worst part of this movie, but everything else was good or better. I was pleasantly surprised by Terminator: Dark Fate August 21 out of August 29, 1997, the original date of Judgment Day.