INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The release of a new Terminator sequel has become a familiar ritual: The latest filmmakers acknowledge the greatness of the first two
movies, then mumble awkwardly about the other sequels — which are inevitably ignored, because they assure us that this time, they&ve
created the sequel we&ve been waiting for.
I can&t tell you whether &Rise of the Machines,& &Salvation& or &Genisys& deserve to be dismissed
like this, because I haven&t seen any of them
(I did watch the TV spin-off, &The Sarah Connor Chronicles,& which was pretty good.) But I can say that the latest installment, &Terminator:
Dark Fate,& delivers on the promise of a worthy sequel.
It helps, of course, to see the return of some familiar names — not just Arnold
Schwarzenegger, but also Linda Hamilton, who takes up the role of Sarah Connor for the first time since &Terminator 2.&And then there
franchise creator James Cameron, who was apparently too busy with his &Avatar& sequels to direct (&Dark Fate& was helmed by &Deadpool&
director Tim Miller instead), but who stayed involved as a producer and story writer.
Not that the story is really the selling point: The
big emotional moments can feel clumsy and rushed, and some of the dialog is genuinely groan-worthy.
All the script really needs to do,
though, is give us a reason for those familiar faces to be back on-screen together, and to convince us that it not totally pointless to
watch another Terminator movie
In that, it succeeds — with a few nods toward the changing technological and political landscape thrown in for good measure.
Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton star in Skydance Productions and Paramount Pictures& &TERMINATOR: DARK FATE.&
In the film opening minutes,
we learn that Sarah and John Connor efforts at the end of &Terminator 2: Judgment Day& have succeeded in averting a nuclear apocalypse
However, for reasons that only become clear later, those pesky Terminators keep showing up.
The story proper kicks off in Mexico City, where
a young woman named Dani Ramos (played by Natalia Reyes) becomes the latest target of a cyborg assassin
Her pursuer (Gabriel Luna) is an advanced model whose skin and skeleton can function as two separate bodies, and she saved by not one but
two protectors — Sarah Connor, along with a cybernetically enhanced soldier named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), plus the late-film addition of
an old-model Terminator (Schwarzenegger, naturally).
There are more revelations as the story unfolds, but one of the best things about &Dark
Fate& is the simplicity of its storytelling
Like its first two predecessors, it doesn&t overcomplicate the formula: There a killer cyborg, an innocent target and an overmatched
guardian; mayhem ensues.
It in the depiction of that mayhem that &Dark Fate& excels
The film has plenty of CGI (I&d argue too much), but it feels very different from the weightless, super-powered battles that have become the
big-screen norm, and even from the balletic killing sprees of the &John Wick& movies.
Just got out of a screening of #terminatordarkfate
Didn&t know the person next to me, but as the credits rolled, we both turned to each other and declared, &That was AWESOME.&
— Anthony Ha
(@anthonyha) October 22, 2019
Instead, the action in &Dark Fate& feels like a throwback, specifically to those Cameron-directed Terminator
movies, where a great deal of thought and ingenuity was devoted to coming up with all the different ways that a relentless murder machine
might wreak havoc.
Hamilton, by the way, seems completely at home in these scenes
And although Schwarzenegger performance was gratifyingly funny and loose, &Dark Fate& is absolutely her film.
Meanwhile, I&m still a little
fuzzy on the details of how Luna Rev-9 actually works, but it makes for a striking and unsettling visual
The finale, in particular, offers a masterful escalation of jeopardy and destruction, as Rev-9 tears through one environment after another
in pursuit of our increasingly desperate heroes — almost convincing you that this time, the Terminator really might be unstoppable.
I
don&t want to overstate the case here: &Dark Fate& doesn&t quite replicate the perfect mix of violence, terror and melancholy that made
those first two films so memorable
But it can hold its own in a fight.
