Like all but one of the sequels that came before it, Terminator: Dark Fate is not a popular movie. Following the run of mediocre-to-poor releases between Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003 and Terminator Genisys in 2015, Terminator: Dark Fate was supposed to bring fans salvation. With James Cameron on story duties and Linda Hamilton reprising her role as Sarah Connor, there was genuine hope that Dark Fate would be Terminator‘s shining light.
That didn’t quite happen. Terminator: Dark Fate sparked mixed reactions from fans and critics, with the copy-and-paste story, the death of John Connor and the shallow characterization being among the most common criticisms. Even the people who made Terminator: Dark Fate have mixed opinions about it. Director Tim Miller (via THR) expressed frustration over creative differences with James Cameron, Linda Hamilton doesn’t “love it,” Cameron called it “your granddad’s Terminator movie,” and Arnold Schwarzenegger openly criticized the story.
Rewatching Terminator: Dark Fate six years later, it’s still a hard film to fall in love with. In hindsight, however, it becomes clear that a truly great Terminator movie is lurking deep down and may be closer to the surface than people realized at the time.
The “Core” Of Terminator: Dark Fate Is Actually Really Good
Rewatching Terminator: Dark Fate without the benefit of expectations, it becomes apparent that the film’s bones are surprisingly strong. Linda Hamilton’s older, grizzled, I-can’t-believe-she-could-get-more-cynical Sarah Connor is a masterstroke, and the perfect lynchpin to bridge Terminator‘s past and future.
Gabriel Luna’s Rev-9 provides an ideal villain. The concept of a combined solid-liquid construction lets Terminator: Dark: Fate pull out all the favorite moves from the first two films, while modern CGI allows for scenes Terminator: Judgment Day could only dream of. The Rev-9’s ability to separate its solid skeleton is a neat new gimmick all of its own, but the villain’s best trick by far is the ability to be sickly sweet. Gabriel Luna’s mechanical assassin is eerily good at blending in among humans, and that only makes this particular model creepier.
Whisper it, but Natalia Reyes’ Dani could be a better MacGuffin than John Connor in Judgment Day. Great the 1991 sequel may be, but John’s teenage whinging grates on the nerves. His bond with Schwarzenegger’s T-800 saves the character, but without that, he’s a live-action Bart Simpson. By contrast, Dani leads from the front, forcing herself to become more than a character who needs protecting – a neat way to foreshadow the eventual reveal of her leading the future resistance.
As one of the last major blockbusters before COVID, it’s interesting to go back and examine the quality of visual effects and fight sequences in Terminator: Dark Fate. The wisdom of hiring Tim Miller shows in how hard every blow hits. It’s a level of slightly-cartoonish cybernetic violence that feels undeniably Terminator-esque, and still makes you feel every “oof” and “ouch” six years later.
So, Why Isn’t Terminator: Dark Fate Great?
It has been said before that Terminator: Dark Fate is the best Terminator movie since Judgment Day, which is damning with faint praise. Given the strengths outlined above, it should have been the first great installment since Judgment Day.
Killing off John Connor is the film’s first big error. In fairness, John had to go. Nobody needed another John Connor movie after Rise of the Machines and Salvation, and Sarah Connor’s return doesn’t happen if he’s still around. The problem is killing John right during the introduction. More than just setting a sour tone, waving away years of established canon courts controversy mere minutes into the movie.
Instead, Terminator: Dark Fate could have reintroduced Sarah Connor while keeping John’s whereabouts vague. Near the climax, Sarah could then reveal her son’s “dark fate” as an explanation for why Dani is the Terminators’ new target. Using John’s demise as an emotional third-act beat for his mother, rather than to force a clean slate before the movie begins, would have smoothed over Terminator: Dark Fate‘s cracks a little better.
Terminator: Dark Fate‘s second big mistake is Carl. Around the halfway point, it becomes clear that Dark Fate needs something to elevate it beyond a cookie-cutter Terminator story, and so turns to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reformed T-800. From there, the spotlight predictably sticks to Arnie like glue, and everyone else is relegated to supporting roles. Time that could have been spent building up Mackenzie Davis as the franchise’s new Terminator hero goes to Carl instead.
From the moment Carl joins the crew, Terminator: Dark Fate slips into parody territory. Pre-Carl, Dark Fate lovingly embraced franchise tropes – the first fight between Grace and the Rev-9 is deliberately similar to Arnie and the T-1000 in Judgment Day, for example. But the appearance of a cybernetic curtain fitter talking about his lack of “physical relationship” with a human woman and cracking jokes about polka dots saps away any degree of gravity Terminator: Dark Fate had developed until that point.
If Terminator: Dark Fate had resisted the urge to recall Schwarzenegger, found another “extra” element to replace him, and done better by John Connor, it really could have been the third great movie in the series.
Sources: THR
