Movie Review - Terminator: Dark Fate: A reprise that feeds on past glory, yet falls flat

Johnson Thomas

Twenty-eight years after the first Terminator hit the screens, we get a rehashed reprise set 22 years after Judgment Day, with now 70-year-old Arnold and 60-year-old Linda reissuing their iconic characters T800 and Sarah Connor, respectively, but the affect is just not the same. 

Directed by Tim (Deadpool) Miller, this franchise extension appears to exist merely to keep up with the numbers. It’s a formulaic attempt to hang on to the original’s viewers while creating a new fan base from the current generation. Unfortunately, the science hasn’t changed much so the vow factor is totally missing here.  

Dark Fate keeps its so-called current plot mechanics close to that of the first two Terminator films. A seemingly indestructible assassin sent from the future to eliminate a threat is opposed by a more vulnerable humanistic cyborg protector. The familiar beats are the killer here. Other than the ‘Mother Mary with a Gun’ analogy for Sarah Connor, there’s nothing new here. The structure is basically an elongated hot pursuit that ends up in a set-piece action climax and there are no surprises along the way. Even the cinematography fails the originality test here – this film looks and plays out like the original but the attachment thereof is feeble at best. Dramatic tension is largely missing, the CGI fails to illuminate any new advances in futuristic science and the acting save for Mackenzie and Reyes, is pedestrian at best. Dark Fate may sound ominous but despite the vigorous episodic action this nostalgic revisit seems like a stale rehash.