Now this has to be some kind of record right. Hollywood has actually tried to kickstart three trilogies with this franchise and every one has failed at the first hurdle. Three huge blockbuster attempts, three flops. 'Terminator Salvation' was probably the most original and better of the attempts, tank. 'Terminator Gen-I-sys' or however you pronounce it, über tank. And now finally 'Terminator: Dark Fate', a woke tank. Seriously that's an impressive record of shit right there Hollywood.
So you see my use of the word woke just now, well it's kinda justified. No I'm not trying to just on any bandwagons here but come on, look at the evidence here. What we essentially have is James Cameron's T2 remade and genderswapped. The plot is exactly the flippin' same for Pete's sake! The main difference here is they have killed off John Connor only to replace him with a young female minority version. As said, the rest is the same as before with a new Terminator coming back from the future to try and eliminate its target. Wash, rinse, and repeat, again.
Oh Jesus where to begin?!
So they killed off John straight away, right off the bat they render everything that has come before pointless, obsolete. The funny thing is Hollywood pulled the same shit with other franchises like Star Wars, Predator, Alien etc...You know, making ridiculous decisions with the story in newer sequels that render everything before it null and void. They never learn.
The new Terminator isn't threatening...at all! Now I understand the notion of having a regular looking guy as a Terminator because a Terminator is supposed to be an infiltration unit for assassination purposes, cool. And personally I loved the original casting idea of Lance Henriksen as the Terminator in the original 1984 movie because of his unique appearance (using Schwarzenegger always seemed like the cheesy option to me). But this guy (Gabriel Luna) has no presence or visual appeal at all. The man literally looks like a generic clothes catalog model. Sure you could say that is perfect for a Terminator but at the same time you need something of interest for the audience, the actor needs to have an interesting face. It's a hard line to walk granted but this choice was poor.
Speaking of casting choices, the entire cast was wrong in my opinion. Natalia Reyes as Dani (the new John Connor) was not only terrible acting-wise but completely unbelievable as the new future of the human race mainly down to her height and size. She couldn't even hold an assault weapon believably for Christ's sake. Then we had the character of Grace (Grace?) played by MacKenzie Davis sporting some tomboy haircut (anyone notice she had the same haircut as a child in a flashback sequence?). Clearly this character was part of the neo trendy transgender obsession as she was obviously supposed to be androgynous. Grace was the Kyle Reese character genderswapped but better because she was augmented with technology that enabled her to do fancy pointless flips and such (eye-roll much?).
And then we have Arnie and Linda. I facepalmed so hard at the thought of Schwarzenegger returning yet again as a Terminator. I mean come on people!! This guy is too old! It's just embarrassing now. The fact they still used that stupid idea of aging flesh from the previous flop was laughable. The fact they used the whole notion of Arnie's Terminator learning human emotions to the point that it becomes a good character, marries and is self-employed selling curtains were both fecking absurd and laughable. How the hell does it marry and not have the female discover its a fecking robot?? As for Linda Hamilton, this was clearly to try and get the older fanbase back on-board as Arnie wasn't working anymore. They pulled a pathetic Disney/Star Wars move. Both are too old and both looked ridiculous.
The Terminator had a stupid design. This time the hook is it can separate into two Terminators. One is the metal skeleton whilst the other is the liquid metal skin. They can part at any time which seemed like a reasonably lengthy process that rendered the whole thing pointless to me. Also, why not just send two Terminators? Oh yeah and Skynet no longer exists of course, its called 'Legion' now. Another pointless move because not only does this render everything prior obsolete, it also surely means the threat from the machines will never end...right? One super machine will just replace another so there is no real tension anymore.
The special effects are poor. How can a movie of this size and cost have poor effects? Overuse of CGI as per usual. But yeah the effects are generally bad and obvious. There are multiple scenes with horrendously obvious greenscreen effects. The action sequences use horrendously obvious ragdoll effects on characters when they are being flung around. And, as expected, some sequences are way way overblown with completely unnecessary set-pieces such as the mid-air plane collision. I mean really? Did..did you really need to have a jumbo jet action sequence here? Did we really need the Humvee sequence? This franchise is supposed to be an adult horror thriller, not a superhero movie. All this does is prove to me once again that Hollywood (and even Cameron) doesn't understand these old franchises anymore.
This pretty much sums up my whole opinion of Hollywood and how they approach movies these days. They just don't understand old franchises anymore, classic or otherwise. They can't come up with any original material anymore, everything has to be remade or rebooted. They think everything needs (biased) political commentary, not even subtle but obvious in your face political commentary. They keep gender or race-swapping key characters to appease specific groups. And, apparently, they think everything needs to be like a Marvel movie now. This entire movie felt like some fan-made Latino version of the franchise, literally taking bits from the first two movies and remaking them, including the ending! One word, abysmal.
2/10
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