Terminator Dark Fate : SPOILER REVIEW

Terminator – Dark Fate

Review with spoilers

The new Terminator is out and it’s aptly titled Dark Fate (DF) because it’s the only kind of fate the franchise can look forward to. It’s a direct sequel to T2 and ignores all the other movies produced since the 1991 classic. Actually it not just ignores all the movies produced since then it destroys the reason those movies (T3, Salvation. Genesis) exist. John Connor is murdered early in DF and yet the movie bustles along inventing new excuses for human and cyborg to time-travel, do battle, and stir up nostalgia.

The plot borders on the bizarre. And it has to. DF is not just a sequel but also a reboot of kinds. It’s an attempt to recast the Terminator myth. In order to revitalize the franchise its makers have replaced critical elements of the original lore with other similar elements.

So the plot goes something like this. The events of T2 ensured Skynet was stopped. Sarah Connor and John – deemed terrorists – went on the run. In 1998 on a beach in Guatemala, John was killed by a T-800. It so happens that Skynet had sent more T-800s back in time and even though Skynet itself was no longer a threat the Terminators it sent continued to carry out their mission. Sarah Connor, devastated by the loss of her son, turned alcoholic and spent all her time hunting down the remaining T-800s. Having completed its mission the T-800 that killed John, now free from its primary directive, began to evolve. He met a woman with a son running from an abusive husband. He adopted them, took up the name Carl, and went into the Drapery business.

In the present day, the plot concerns itself with a factory worker in Mexico named  Dani, who is being hunted by a Terminator called Rev-9 sent back from 2042. To protect Dani the forces of good from the future have sent back a cybernetically-enhanced human called Grace. Grace saves Dani but after a long chase the two can only escape the  Rev with help of Sarah Connor who has been directed to save Grace by mysterious text messages she has been receiving on her phone. Grace zeroes-in on the location of the mystery text-sender and since he is in Laredo, Texas and our band of ass-kicking sisters are in Mexico, they have to cross the border. Another big fight erupts in a border detention camp. Once more the Rev-9 is thwarted. The women arrive in Laredo to discover that the mystery text-sender is none other than Carl, yes Carl, you know Carl, the cargo-shorts wearing oldie, who was once a relentless killing-machine, who having completed his mission, took up a family and went into the drapery business.

Carl has been helping Sarah because he’s developed a conscience. He’s a father. He understands the loss Sarah’s suffered and wants to redeem himself. Yes, the Terminator wants to redeem himself. He displays more  humanity in the movie than all the other humans. Which begs the question: would the world have been better off with Skynet after all? A world ruled by a sentient all-knowing machine capable of spiritual evolution? It sure seems so. Sign me up for the apocalypse. I will take my chances with those thinking-feeling appliances over the mean-idiots running the show presently.

The climax arrives. Carl and his band of ass-kicking sister battle Rev-9. Grace is killed, and Carl sacrifices himself taking the Rev-9 down with him. Sarah and Dani are left to survive an uncertain future.

So who is Dani? She’s the John Connor of this quasi-reboot. Although Skynet was stopped the machines nevertheless found a way. Legion, an AI designed for cyber warfare, trigged a nuclear holocaust, and in its aftermath targeted humans. But as in the original myth the humans, led this time by Dani, rose up against the machines. And so the machines sent Rev-9 back in time to kill Dani, compelling human’s to send back Grace to protect her.

It all feels so tired. It feels less like sci-fi and more like Groundhog Day. The same thing over and over with a few changes in names, timelines and specifications. It relies heavily on noise and nostalgia to see it through. It pays lip-service to questions of gender equality, illegal immigration and aging. It’s vastly better than the dreadful Genesisys ; the set pieces are better conceived and the characters especially Sarah Connor and Carl are worth a watch. But in jettisoning the old myth, killing John Connor, replacing Skynet, the writers (five of them) and the director have put the entire franchise in jeopardy. If critical elements of the old lore are expendable then why would anyone make further investments in the Terminator universe? If John Connorwasn’t pivotal to humanity’s fight against the machines then why should Grace be any different? Her fate is entirely contingent on box-office receipts and given how the last three Terminator’s have performed it is a dark fate indeed.