#terminator 6

Okay, I just got finished watching the movie. Here are my thoughts:

Short review: It’s definitely one of the better post-T2 sequels but it still feels like an unnecessary entry in the series. It gets a letter grade of C / C+. 

Long review:

PROS

1) Gabriel Luna as the Rev-9. Easily one of the better villain Terminators in the series, arguably the best. He was absolutely menacing and Luna was able to pull off the machine-like personality without it coming off as cheesy. If I had to pick who among the cast really shined, it’d be Luna.  

2) Arnold Schwarzenegger as Carl. Okay, I love the idea of a Terminator finding new purpose and integrating with humanity. That’s the whole point of the series, it’s about machines blending in with mankind. Carl takes that concept and goes in a different direction with it. That said, WHY COULDN’T THIS MOVIE BE ABOUT CARL? I’d honestly love for a whole Terminator movie about what happens to a Terminator after it completed its mission. I’ll just say it now, the Carl subplot was far more interesting than the main storyline. 

3) Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor. Not much to say here, Linda killed it. It was nice to see Sarah as this brooding, aging anti-hero. She reminded me of Hugh Jackman’s performance in Logan. I was actually surprised that the movie didn’t give as much for Linda to do as I thought they would have. She was definitely in more of a supporting role compared to her roles in T1 and T2. 

4) Mackenzie Davis as Grace. I mean, I should be more critical of this character since Grace is just Kyle Reese 2.0 (more on this later) but the movie did make Grace a distinct enough character to stand on her own. Plus, I liked that the movie brought back the concept of the human-robot hybrid. True, this was just an excuse to have Grace fight toe-to-toe with the Rev-9 and to introduce a deus ex machina at the end of the movie instead of exploring concepts of humanity and machines/artificial intelligence but still, I liked Grace’s character. 

5) Action scenes are fantastic. The action highlight would have to go to Gabriel Luna’s Rev-9 doing battle with the border patrol. 

6) This is a minor pro but I love when the Terminator series gives us glimpses of Judgment Day. So although it was short, I did like Grace’s flashback. 

CONS

1) The character of Dani Ramos. Now, I just wanna say, I really tried to like her character. But I’m sorry, I cannot. They literally just copy and pasted John Connor’s role in the story to Dani. That’s not creative, that’s lazy and uninspired. It doesn’t help that Dani herself is a flat, two-dimensional character. Credit to Natalia Reyes for giving an excellent performance but how her character was written was crap.     

2) Legion. Like the Dani Ramos/John Connor situation, they just copy and pasted Skynet’s role in the story to Legion. Seriously, there’s nothing to really differentiate Skynet from Legion aside from the fact that Legion uses “Rev” for their Terminators. Also, the Rev models are...darker? And they don’t have a full head? Look, if you’re going to replace your main villain faction with this new one, give us something new. Or at least, take the story in a different direction.

3) In fact, just writing about my problems with Dani and Legion leads me to my main problem with Dark Fate. It doesn’t take the series anywhere new, to the point that I’m not sure why this movie even exists. Say what you will about Rise of the Machines, Salvation, and Genisys, at least those movies tried to introduce a new element to the series, or tried approaching the series from a different angle. For Dark Fate, the story is just a copy of Terminators 1 and 2, with the human-robot hybrid subplot from 4 and 5, and the T-1000/T-800 hybrid concept from 3. Don’t even start with the “but the new leader is Dani and the new villain is Legion” argument, you can just switch them out with John Connor and Skynet. 

4) Pacing was atrocious. Movie started off fast-paced and intense but didn’t allow the audience to fully take the story in. Then, by the third act, the movie just sorta trudges along. The movie was only 128 minutes long but it felt like I was in the theater for three hours. Somehow, “Avengers: Endgame”, which actually was 3 hours long, didn’t feel as bloated. 

5) Because the writing and pacing was off, the movie didn’t really give the characters a chance to just sit and talk. We get a few of these scenes here and there but they don’t stick. Most of the time, the slow-paced scenes are just used to give out exposition. It honestly feels like no one on the Dark Fate creative team watched the first Terminator movie, even though James Cameron is directly involved with this movie. 

6) Look, I personally don’t have a problem with killing off John Connor. It’s an interesting idea that could take the series to a different direction. But his death didn’t do anything to the story. All that happened was, we got a new John Connor and a new Skynet. If that’s the case, then what was the point of killing him off in the first place? For shock value? That’s pretty damn cheap. 

SIDE NOTE

If the story is going to revolve around protecting Dani, at least take the story in a different direction. Make her distinct from John Connor. For example, let’s say in the original future, she grows up to become a scientist and invents the Legion program as a way of destroying Skynet (the concept of using a virus to battle a virus). The Rev-9 was then sent by Skynet to kill her as she’s just as responsible for Skynet’s downfall. However, due to John and Sarah making sure Skynet doesn’t exist in T2, the future changes to Dani still creating Legion but to profit off of the arms race. Legion becomes sentient and, without Skynet as its enemy, it becomes the new Skynet. 

So, with Grace being from the future where Legion is used for good, she believes that Dani is still a savior, unaware that Dani is responsible for the coming apocalypse. Thus we get a role reversal, with the Rev-9′s mission to kill Dani could potentially save humanity while Grace’s mission to keep her alive will result in Judgment Day. Both Grace and the Rev-9 are unaware that their missions will have the opposite effect.