Terminator (III) Dark Fate
When I saw the first Terminator movie in a theatre I expected to see a low budget sci-fi movie. But this was a real good movie and I was surprised how good Arnold Schwarzenegger was, he fit the part perfectly as did his co-star, Linda Hamilton.
Terminator II is one of my favorite sci-fi movies.. The great actors were joined by Robert Patrick, who was perfect as an evil Terminator sent from the future. The special effects in this movie were novel, compelling and outstanding. This movie, and Jurassic Park showed me that nothing was impossible.
Terminator (III) Dark Fate is one of the most disappointing movies I have seen. It is not a terribly bad movie, I am sure that David and Ralph will be able to sit through it, it is so NOT original. The plot very much follows that of Terminator 2, except we learn that Skynet does not exist but a “cloned” group does. They are called Legion.
As with many movies with older stars, a younger clone is called in to do the stunt work of the original star. (See Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when Shia LaBeouf “replaced” Harrison Ford). Here,
Natalia Reyes fills in a great deal for Linda Hamilton, although there is really no need because NO one could really live through what they go through without a scratch. Mackenzie Davis plays the “Bionic Woman” sent back to protect Natalia. Finally, Diego Boneta plays the new, evil Terminator sent back to prevent Natalia from “saving the future” (just as Hamilton did in the Terminator II.) All three of the newcomers do not have the screen presence of the people they replaced. So you wind up "rooting” for no one. Especially disappointing is the new evil Terminator, Boneta, who did not scare me or threaten me one bit. Also, he really had no new features, unlike Robert Patrick who scared all of us in T2.
This movie ignores all the Terminator movies that came after T2. Also, Arnie, who is funny and entertaining here, doesn’t appear until halfway through the movie.
The movie is one long chase, where we know that no one will be hurt, killed or destroyed until the very end. So we just wait. In fact, a friend who saw the movie with me, said that she was bored for 75% of the movie. I was only bored for 50%. There is NOTHING new here, not even in the special effects. The effects are fine, but I have seen it all before, it had none of the innovation of T2. It was also missing the great music of T2 and tries to mimic it when possible.
As a stand-alone movie, for someone who didn’t see the first two, this movie would be fine. For the rest of us, well, you can miss this. I can’t wait for David’s review of the disc.
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