Terminator: Dark Fate

It has been 28 years since Linda Hamilton has appeared in a Terminator movie. Coincidentally, it’s also been 28 years since there was a Terminator movie really worth watching. A lot has changed since 1991, in terms of CGI technology, the aging of key actors, and the rise of the internet. But it seems at least plausible in order to make a rousing film for this once-great franchise more recently sunken into morbidity, they need to employ the gritty Hamilton to get them there.

Happily, something else has significantly changed since the last decade of the 20th century: The rise of action-flick feminism in modern Hollywood has proved financially viable. The idea of capable, combat-ready women acting as the lead in action films — from Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road and Atomic Blonde and Brie Larson in Captain Marvel to Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman — is no longer an anomaly, but a tried-and-true subgenre of its own in 2019. Let it be known that this film, directed by Tim Miller, from a story hatched by a half-dozen writers including James Cameron himself, strikes yet another blow for cinematic female badassery.

After a brief prelude, in which we see the tragic fate of the original John Connor (Edward Furlong) in front of his devastated mother, Sarah Connor (Hamilton), we return to the present, outside Mexico City, where naked, advanced tech robots and cyborgs are dropping out of the sky. Two, to be exact: First, Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an “enhanced” human being, endowed with a combination of tech and organic muscle, there to protect Dani (Natalia Reyes), a young Mexican factory worker, with no idea what’s about to happen to her, and shortly thereafter, a brand-new terminator (Gabriel Luna), of the Rev-9 class, sent to exterminate Dani at the first opportunity.

So, we begin with the series’ classic setup — one protector, sent from the future to keep a key human figure alive, and a machine sent to wipe them out — only the script, cobbled together from the aforementioned writer cabal, finds ways to make the scenario feel fresh.

For one thing, instead of two men battling over a woman, whose womb is so precious to the human race, we have a woman protecting another woman (Hispanic, no less) not because of the child she might someday have but because she herself will become the leader of the rebellion against the machines. When Connor joins them, holding the Rev-9 at bay until they can finally be reunited with our old compadre, the aged T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) we know so well, the film has gracefully managed to link ’90s-era swells with the modern age.

The result is a Terminator movie that feels dutifully connected to the legacy of the first two, without (terribly) sentimentalizing the past in the process. It’s a delicate balance every successful sequel has to weigh, but Miller and company have improbably gone and done it. It’s an action showcase worthy of its hefty heritage.

Else you get the wrong idea with all this seeming progressivism, as a political animal, the film is everywhere at once: On the one hand, you have a strong female cast and the prescient politics of our current administration’s immigration policies — a Mexican national is forced to attempt an illegal border crossing into the United States in order to save what’s left of humanity but is instead (oh, the irony!) captured and held in a detention center.

It must be noted that the filmmakers take pains to show the compassion and professionalism of the border security agents simply trying to do the jobs they’ve been assigned. On the other hand, you also have the series’ penchant for potent firepower, violence and bloody mayhem (the T-800’s partial explanation for his extremely well-stocked armory: “I live in Texas,” said with a shrug).

Cameron, who between his handling of Sarah Connor in The Terminator, and Ripley in Aliens, must be considered something of a trailblazer in the female action hellcat field, has always infused his films with this sort of peculiar combination of proto-feminism and deadly assault guns. So it’s no surprise Miller’s film follows in those illustrious footsteps.

It’s also bracing to see an action film where the women, far from passive and restrained, are actually more ferocious and resourceful than the scant male characters, even if the latter are both androids. Notably, Grace is, in fact, human (as she keeps specifying), which allows for more of an emotional core than is generally associated with the series. Grace is there to protect Deni at any cost, but her mission seems more personal, as we come to find out. She is courageous and outlandishly gifted, but she’s also subject to real emotions and a propensity to collapse from low blood sugar if not injected with a steady supply of insulin as a result of her enhanced capabilities.

Obviously, for sheer, unadulterated kick-ass heroism, Hamilton’s Connor, battle-worn, such that every mark and wrinkle on her face is put to good use, is the central force, powering the rest of the film. In grieving over her lost son, she has used her pain to forge a fierce, pitiless persona, a grim reaper for other terminators and a surly woman of few words, directly out of the Clint Eastwood gunfighter mold.

What is perhaps most surprising, however, are the small moments of humanity Miller allows in between generous and well-appointed scenes of carnage. From loving details — Connor apparently adores potato chips — to perhaps the funniest bit in the film, when the T-800, having adopted a human identity and started a business as a drapery installer, regales Dani with a long, winding story about his hanging curtains in a little girl’s room, which the girl’s father mistakenly insists should be solid colors instead of something with polka dots or balloons.

Miller, who made the first Deadpool movie, has a knack for weaving humorous character chicanery amid the violent heaves of an action flick without it ever losing its momentum. The skill serves him well, even as the film bends over backward to offer proper fan service (Arnold’s most famous line is repurposed not once but twice). It also helps to have two venerable actors such as Hamilton and Schwarzenegger to add real-world pathos to the proceedings.

In short, we have the makings for a genuinely entertaining action flick, that seems to know its place in the pantheon, breaking just enough new ground to stay fresh, but still largely in keeping with the best the series has offered before. Most impressively, it also successfully bites off of the first couple of films’ narrative hook: Putting undermanned heroes against a nearly unstoppable killing machine and twisting that hook until it very nearly draws blood.