Terminator: Dark Fate

I have to say this out loud. This is the Terminator that I remember from my childhood. This is the continuation that I was wishing for after the second movie. Finally this is something that follows at least some logic and where Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton appear and all of that in combination with great action scenes makes sense. Tim Miller was a good choice and I’m glad that James Cameron was able to manage it from the financial aspect as well as the filmmaking one. Even though I wasn’t expecting anything or maybe just anger, at the end my eyes misted. This movie is as good as its upgraded opening song. It uses well-known Terminator motifs that are changed just slightly so that you can feel the nostalgia of the past emanate from it by adding just a few notes that were previously unknown to you. Moreover Arnold shows up less times that you would want but still it is enough for you not to forget him. (07/22/2020)

The Terminator has become a kind of second Columbo – every time he comes back, you're a little less glad (in the case of the Terminator if you're a viewer, in the case of Columbo if you're a killer). This movie... it's off to a promising start. In fact, its opening scene was the best ever, because it surprised me and made me feel something, which I can't say about the rest of it. The whole weirdly unfolding story failed to make me feel like there was really something going on, that I should be worried about someone. I guess it's also because it's a repeat of what we've seen before, only this time the "new Sarah" isn't interesting at all, the "real Sarah" is mostly a decoy to the fans, and Arnold's terminator gets a terrible beating because by the time the finale comes, in which he finally finds himself, he's acting more like he's in an SNL sketch than the movie James Cameron supposedly had something to do with. The heroine sent from the future, played by Mackenzie Davis, is likeable and reminded me of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, except that although she points out several times that she is human, I didn't feel any humanity from her and she acted more like a machine. Then again, I hardly know what to write about her antagonist – except perhaps that the repeated shots of his reassembling head/body got old so quickly, as did almost all of the action scenes, which were great but boring. It's the same, maybe a little better than Terminator Genisys... but on the other hand, Genisys at least tried to do the unexpected sometimes (even if it was stupid afterwards). (11/01/2019)

The merger of old and new characters is done nicely and Arnold’s catchphrases will make you laugh. That makes the over-digitized, unnecessarily over-the-top wannabe action (most of all on the plane) all the more annoying, as it completely spoils this otherwise decently entertaining flick. Less would have been more if they couldn’t spend another $ 100 million on better digital effects. And the new young female terminator Mackenzie Davis is tough, but uninteresting and asexual. (11/26/2019)

The T-800 lives with his family in a cabin in the woods, is an expert at ladies' curtains, raises and pets a dog on the porch, and just out of the blue decides (programmed, unprogrammed, it doesn't matter) to do good. In short, Terminator as a soap opera. Add to that the nowadays fashionable girl-power element (a six-foot-tall teenage girl is a leader of the resistance) and the last half-hour of overstuffed digital crap. And there’s not a single action scene with the charge of anything by Cameron. Sadly, the best – and in fact the only good – thing about the whole film is the ageing Linda Hamilton, who, with how poor her career has been for the last 20 years, clearly enjoyed it and had fun. Otherwise, a terrible mess that completely fucks up all the careful mythology outlined by Cameron. And as I look at the four stars here, people have either gone completely insane or they don’t need much to be happy. And by the way, in the cinema, my friend and I were in an empty auditorium all by ourselves, in the evening, in Liberec, a city of 100,000 and four days after the premiere. That, too, says something about the decline of once famous franchises. (01/16/2020)

There is one more pleasant surprise this year after all. I wasn't really expecting it from the new Terminator, and it's all the more pleasant. Tim Miller delivers a lot of action (admittedly, a bit too digital at times), but, most importantly, the right Terminator atmosphere. At the same time, he's not afraid to try new things that are more suited to the twenty-first century. Terminator: Dark Fate does feel a lot like the first and second movies, it's more or less one long chase, but Miller doesn't try to cheaply reference the older films and instead fills the screen with a lot of simply great, quality action. And with interesting female leads, too. The main stars of the new Terminator are three ladies who looked god-knows-what in the photos. Fortunately, in the end, they are charismatic and interesting characters that the three leads portray more than well. And Arnold? Arnold is the king! Although a little different than you'd expect. In short, Miller and James Cameron made what fans have wanted to see since the second film, while not being afraid to throw in a few modern trends. If you're fundamentally bothered by women getting more and more space in the male-dominated genre, Dark Fate will convince you that when done well, it's not only okay, it's very good. (10/25/2019)