This latest instalment in the "Terminator" franchise brings in some twists and additions to the lore but still feels like a lazy restatement of what we've seen numerous times previously. The story has been told better, especially with the first two in the series. Now this new entry just seems to give the viewer a cursory and perfunctory action film and characters, in order to fill it with even more action. That action can be ridiculous though, as in not being believable. The terminator that you see this time is another upgrade to the one seen in "Terminator: Judgment Day", going on memory. You see familiar faces from this series as well as some new ones, the latter to presumably appear in further sequels. Their emotions and reactions are familiar, and demonstrate the cursory and perfunctory nature of the storytelling which I mentioned earlier.
Overall, this film lacks soul. Whilst the new elements of the film are interesting, especially with the focus on the female characters (this focus might make this the kind of film that girlfriends might end up not minding being dragged to by their boyfriends), it's just a pity the rest of the film doesn't provide enough material in support of this. These new elements could have been an interesting ingredient of the original film but you would wonder if audiences of the time would have been receptive to it and not punished the film at the box office as a result. Better yet, such elements could have been better integrated into this one, with the focus on the new character perhaps being made to comment on the nature of humans, whatever the threat.
You can probably guess the tension that the filmmakers were trying to relieve here: they had a franchise which had told a good story at the start and could have been left for posterity...but making a lot of money from these films is good, so why can't we just bung out another one when we've really got nothing interesting to say?
Set initially in Mexico, "Terminator: Dark fate" even comes across initially as a foreign language film, with Spanish being spoken and subtitles used (it's only for a short time, though). Perhaps such a setting and the new characters introduced here are pointed, since the current President of America, Donald Trump, has made a point of vilifying this country and its people.
The themes of this franchise, such as the dangers of artificial intelligence and robots are becoming more topical in our age. Contemporary mass surveillance is referenced. When you tie that in with artificially intelligent robots from the future which look human and are here to kill the sources of resistance to their rule in the future, well, the effect is powerful. It occurs to me that these terminators are so powerful that resistance is useless. It also occurs to me that the lure of making a lot of money at the box office is also something where resistance is useless to James Cameron. I was under the impression that an Australian Prime Minister, probably Paul Keating, had used a phrase like "like a dog returning to its own vomit" but I see that Wikipedia lists such a phrase as originating in the bible. So long as this franchise keeps making money, no matter how much the films stink, James Cameron will return to them. Or, he'll just bide his time until the time to reboot the franchise is right!
There is some humour in this film. Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator delivers some deadpan lines, demonstrating a dry sense of humour. I wish that I was paying more attention to one scene where his character was waxing lyrical about a certain item found in homes. It made me think whether his character had a dry sense of humour or just lacked self-awareness, although I do concede that it could equally have both. Last year, Jamie Lee Curtis demonstrated there is life for old actors...when there is a franchise involved, with her return to the world of "Halloween". Here, Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger reinforce that observation. Linda's character does seem a prop at times though, coming across as sucking a lemon before speaking (she's understandably bitter and a cynic).
As far as I can remember, I've seen the first two in this franchise ("The Terminator", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day") but I can't say that I remember having seen the next one, "Terminator 3: Rise of the machines" (edit: I just saw a picture from this film now, which reminds me that I think that I have seen it...the one with the female terminator). I have seen and reviewed at this site "Terminator salvation" but not the next one "Terminator Genisys". There's also been a TV series which I've seen "Terminator: The Sarah Connor chronicles" (at least to once the series started getting overly religious in its content but maybe I've seen all of it. It was cancelled after its second series, Perhaps I took the view that I wouldn't continue watching the series, if it had continued). Wikipedia's article on this latest instalment mentions that story creator James Cameron regards everything after the second Terminator film as belonging to alternate timelines. Going on memory, it occurs to me that what we see early on in "Terminator: Dark fate" as far as the fate of one character goes, would also put it in an alternate timeline from "Terminator: Judgment Day".
When your film utilises time travel as an element of the story, incoherence can obviously follow. As far as I'm aware, there are no parallel worlds in the Terminator universe (it's up to the viewer to treat different films as being in "alternate timelines", to user Cameron's phrase. They are not part of a coherent series in other words. Some of them must not be a 'true' part of the 'real' story told). That being said, that should, perhaps, make the existence of Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator an anomaly in this film, i.e. with no causal link to this world. His existence there is perhaps paradoxical. I don't know. Is there a coherent philosophy of how the universe would work in a world of time travel but no parallel worlds? I wouldn't think so. In any case, the lore surrounding terminators is expanded through his story in this film
My score for this film isn't a reflection on the prominence of women in this film. It's a reflection of the quality of the story. Really, I can't say that "more of the same" in future instalments hold any attraction for me now
Overall, this film lacks soul. Whilst the new elements of the film are interesting, especially with the focus on the female characters (this focus might make this the kind of film that girlfriends might end up not minding being dragged to by their boyfriends), it's just a pity the rest of the film doesn't provide enough material in support of this. These new elements could have been an interesting ingredient of the original film but you would wonder if audiences of the time would have been receptive to it and not punished the film at the box office as a result. Better yet, such elements could have been better integrated into this one, with the focus on the new character perhaps being made to comment on the nature of humans, whatever the threat.
You can probably guess the tension that the filmmakers were trying to relieve here: they had a franchise which had told a good story at the start and could have been left for posterity...but making a lot of money from these films is good, so why can't we just bung out another one when we've really got nothing interesting to say?
Set initially in Mexico, "Terminator: Dark fate" even comes across initially as a foreign language film, with Spanish being spoken and subtitles used (it's only for a short time, though). Perhaps such a setting and the new characters introduced here are pointed, since the current President of America, Donald Trump, has made a point of vilifying this country and its people.
The themes of this franchise, such as the dangers of artificial intelligence and robots are becoming more topical in our age. Contemporary mass surveillance is referenced. When you tie that in with artificially intelligent robots from the future which look human and are here to kill the sources of resistance to their rule in the future, well, the effect is powerful. It occurs to me that these terminators are so powerful that resistance is useless. It also occurs to me that the lure of making a lot of money at the box office is also something where resistance is useless to James Cameron. I was under the impression that an Australian Prime Minister, probably Paul Keating, had used a phrase like "like a dog returning to its own vomit" but I see that Wikipedia lists such a phrase as originating in the bible. So long as this franchise keeps making money, no matter how much the films stink, James Cameron will return to them. Or, he'll just bide his time until the time to reboot the franchise is right!
There is some humour in this film. Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator delivers some deadpan lines, demonstrating a dry sense of humour. I wish that I was paying more attention to one scene where his character was waxing lyrical about a certain item found in homes. It made me think whether his character had a dry sense of humour or just lacked self-awareness, although I do concede that it could equally have both. Last year, Jamie Lee Curtis demonstrated there is life for old actors...when there is a franchise involved, with her return to the world of "Halloween". Here, Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger reinforce that observation. Linda's character does seem a prop at times though, coming across as sucking a lemon before speaking (she's understandably bitter and a cynic).
As far as I can remember, I've seen the first two in this franchise ("The Terminator", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day") but I can't say that I remember having seen the next one, "Terminator 3: Rise of the machines" (edit: I just saw a picture from this film now, which reminds me that I think that I have seen it...the one with the female terminator). I have seen and reviewed at this site "Terminator salvation" but not the next one "Terminator Genisys". There's also been a TV series which I've seen "Terminator: The Sarah Connor chronicles" (at least to once the series started getting overly religious in its content but maybe I've seen all of it. It was cancelled after its second series, Perhaps I took the view that I wouldn't continue watching the series, if it had continued). Wikipedia's article on this latest instalment mentions that story creator James Cameron regards everything after the second Terminator film as belonging to alternate timelines. Going on memory, it occurs to me that what we see early on in "Terminator: Dark fate" as far as the fate of one character goes, would also put it in an alternate timeline from "Terminator: Judgment Day".
When your film utilises time travel as an element of the story, incoherence can obviously follow. As far as I'm aware, there are no parallel worlds in the Terminator universe (it's up to the viewer to treat different films as being in "alternate timelines", to user Cameron's phrase. They are not part of a coherent series in other words. Some of them must not be a 'true' part of the 'real' story told). That being said, that should, perhaps, make the existence of Arnold Schwarzenegger's terminator an anomaly in this film, i.e. with no causal link to this world. His existence there is perhaps paradoxical. I don't know. Is there a coherent philosophy of how the universe would work in a world of time travel but no parallel worlds? I wouldn't think so. In any case, the lore surrounding terminators is expanded through his story in this film
My score for this film isn't a reflection on the prominence of women in this film. It's a reflection of the quality of the story. Really, I can't say that "more of the same" in future instalments hold any attraction for me now