TERMINATOR : DARK FATE - Tuesday 5th November 2019.

'TERMINATOR : DARK FATE' which I saw at my local multiplex earlier this week is an MA15+ Rated American Sci-Fi actioner Directed by Tim Miller in only his second feature film Directing gig after 2016's critical and commercial success that was 'Deadpool'.  This highly anticipated, much hyped and eagerly awaited film is Co-Produced and adapted from a story by James Cameron amongst others. It will be the sixth instalment in the 'Terminator' franchise and the first since 1991's 'Terminator 2 : Judgement Day' to have franchise creator James Cameron involved. The first five films in the franchise have earned a collective Box Office gross of US$1.85B off the back of combined Production Budgets of US$463M. Cameron considers the film a direct sequel to his 1984 film 'The Terminator' and 1991's 'Terminator 2: Judgement Day', while 2003's 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines', 2009's 'Terminator Salvation', 2015's 'Terminator Genisys' and the television series 'Terminator : The Sarah Connor Chronicles' are described as occurring in alternate timelines. This instalment cost in the vicinity of US$180M to bring to the big screen, has so far grossed US$131M, was released in the US last week too, and has received generally mixed Reviews and has failed to make the Box Office expectations initially thought.

Back in 1998, three years after halting the threat of Skynet, Sarah (Linda Hamilton) and John Connor (Edward Furlong) are living a free and easy life of peace somewhere near a beach in Guatemala.  Blissfully unaware that Skynet sent multiple Terminators back through time prior to eradicating the Skynet threat, they are attacked by a T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) which kills John before disappearing. Needless to say Sarah is distraught by what she has just witnessed and cradles the lifeless body of her young son in her arms.

Fast forward some twenty-two years, and a new, modified liquid metal prototype Terminator known as the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) is sent from the future to Mexico City in order to terminate Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), with a hybrid augmented human cyborg known as Grace (Mackenzie Davis) also sent from the future to protect Dani and ensure she survives at all costs. The two future time travellers arrive within a few hours of each other. The Rev-9 only needs to touch someone momentarily to be able to assume their whole identity and physical appearance, and so it is with Dani's father (Enrique Arce), who is replicated and naturally killed in the process. And so the Rev-9 as Mr. Ramos goes to Dani's and her brother Diego's (Diego Boneta) car manufacturing plant where they are both employed with the sole aim of killing Dani. Grace however, is one step ahead and is able to thwart the Rev-9 and escape with the brother and sister in a pick up truck.

The Rev-9 gives chase in a much larger truck trashing multiple cars on the freeway in its pursuit. En route, is also reveals its ability to divide itself into its cybernetic endoskeleton and a shapeshifting liquid metal exterior. It tears after them, killing Diego in the process and cornering Grace and Dani on a raised section of the freeway.

Sarah arrives just in the nick of time and temporarily disables the Rev-9 with a series of explosives. Dani, Grace, and Sarah retreat to a motel where Grace recovers from dehydration and is in desperate need of some vital medication, for fear of shutting down, which she steals from a local pharmacy en route, aided by Dani. 

Following her recovery, and back on the road, Sarah reveals that she was able to locate Grace because in the years since John's death, she has received encrypted messages detailing the locations of arriving Terminators, each ending with the phrase 'For John'. Grace responds that she had not heard of Skynet or John and that they do not exist in her time. Instead, humanity is threatened by an Artificial Intelligence called 'Legion', originally designed for cyberwarfare. Legion took control of all servers worldwide in the late 2040's and, out of desperation and the will to survive, humanity tried to neutralise it with nuclear devices, resulting in a nuclear holocaust and the AI building a global network of machines to eradicate all human survivors.

Grace is able to track Sarah's messages to Laredo, Texas as they continue to evade the Rev-9 and the local authorities. Arriving at an isolated house in the woods via a commandeered helicopter, they discover the T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) that murdered John all those years ago. Sarah, sighting the Terminator wants to kill it on the spot, but is prevented from doing so by Grace, who was led to his location from coordinates tattooed on her stomach before her arrival, with the message to seek him out if necessary. The Terminator states that he was left stranded in an altered timeline and left without any purpose after completing its objective, with no further instructions being forthcoming. As a consequence, the T-800 began to learn from humanity and eventually developed a conscience, taking the name 'Carl', starting a drapery business (can you imagine?) and adopting a human family. Learning of how its own actions had affected Sarah, it decided to send her messages to give her some purpose. 

Carl says his farewells to his family and tells them to escape, anticipating that the Rev-9 will arrive soon. Sarah reluctantly agrees to work together for Dani's sake. The group then makes a plan to ambush and destroy the Rev-9 by luring it into a kill box. Dani receives tactical weapons training utilising the huge stash of heavy artillery maintained by Carl in a locked shed on the property, anticipating that this day would eventually come. 

In order to lure the Rev-9 into their trap, they seek out a military grade Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) device from a serving military acquaintance of Sarah. The Rev-9 soon enough catches up with them, forcing them to steal a C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft to escape. During the flight, Grace reveals that Dani is the future commander of the Resistance, as well as Grace's rescuer when she was orphaned at a young age after Legion seized control of the world. Sarah and Carl come to the realisation that they are fated to meet Grace and Dani, and Sarah concludes that her own history is repeating itself here in Dani. 

The Rev-9 boards their aeroplane by using a KC-10 Extender aerial refuelling tanker aircraft by smashing into the C-5 Galaxy mid-flight. The EMP is destroyed in the subsequent shootout, and Sarah, Dani and Grace are forced to jump from the plane while clinging onto a plummeting Humvee which parachutes and lands precariously on the lip of a dam before falling into a fast flowing river near a hydro-power plant.  

Shortly afterwards the Rev-9 and Carl are battling it out underwater, and gaining the upper hand the Rev-9 approaches the now submerged Humvee containing Dani and Sarah with the water rapidly rising inside the cabin. Sarah releases a parachute at the crucial moment enveloping the Rev-9 and sending him spiralling though the rivers fierce current. Having been washed downstream, the three are reunited, and begin the ascent up to the hydro-power plant, where they are joined by Carl, who by now is looking the worse for wear but still functioning. 

Down but not out, the group makes a stand inside the power plant with the relentless Rev-9 in hot pursuit. In the ensuing battle, Carl and Grace force the Rev-9 into a rapidly spinning turbine and destroy its liquid exterior, so causing an explosion which incapacitates most of the group and mortally wounds Grace. Before dying, Grace tells Dani to use her power source to destroy the Rev-9's surviving yet badly damaged endoskeleton which remains on its mission. Dani reluctantly retrieves Grace's power source from her stomach cavity, and as the Rev-9 gains the upper hand, Carl is able to restrain it, so giving Dani the chance to stab it in the eye socket with the power source. Carl drags itself and the Rev-9 over a ledge falling onto exposed rebar's many metres below. Both now pinned down, and the power source taking effect on the Rev-9, Carl calls out to Sarah 'For John', right before the power core explodes, destroying them both.

'Terminator : Dark Fate' is a good watch, but it's not great. With a marketed disregard for the third, fourth and fifth films in this franchise, this sixth film is intended to be a direct sequel to 'T2 : Judgement Day', which ably puts 'Dark Fate' in third place out of the six instalments seen to date. It's certainly a welcome return to have James Cameron's influence over the Production, and to see Schwarzenegger's and Hamilton's presence together on screen for the first time since 'T2' is also a welcome return to form for the franchise. And Tim Miller's deft Direction with the action sequences especially here proves his worthiness with the skills he clearly honed on 2016's 'Deadpool'. The story is relatable and kinda adds up and makes sense, although it is almost a carbon copy of 'T2' where Robert Patrick's liquid metal shapeshifting T-1000 was sent back from the future to kill John Connor, only to have the day and John saved by the pairing of Schwarzenegger and Hamilton. Are you getting a sense of deja vu here? That said, it's a respectable entry in the 'Terminator' canon that combines well executed action spectacle, a few moments of suspense and emotion, and some much needed levity by way of Carl's justification for becoming more human like, and Sarah's stance on saving the planet from complete oblivion. Worth the price of entry and worth seeing on the big screen for sure, but judging by the Box Office take, any further instalments now seem less likely.

'Terminator : Dark Fate' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-