Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, relentless violence and fleeting nudity
By Derrick Bang
Seriously?
Bad enough that this film is little more than 128 minutes’ worth of increasingly daft chases, brawls, explosions and big guns making bigger holes, fleetingly interrupted by fitful — and unsuccessful — attempts at some semblance of story.
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| Enraged by the violent events that have turned her life upside-down, Dani (Natalia Reyes, right) is prevented from foolish bravado by Grace (Mackenzie Davis), her mysterious protector from the future. |
The greater sin, however, is that this sixth entry in the Terminator series makes even worse hash of the time-travel elements so carefully established in the initial two films, and progressively screwed up by each subsequent entry. At this point, nothing makes any sense, particularly with respect to the fate of all-important John Connor.
Dark Fate apparently is intended as a re-boot of the entire series, but even that flimsy claim doesn’t withstand analysis, given the presence of Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s venerable T-800. This is arbitrary, kitchen-sink mayhem at its most gratuitous.
I’ve observed, over the years, that the quality of a film decreases — often exponentially — in direct relation to the number of writers above two. This misbegotten screenplay has sixcredited writers, which is rather ironic. It can’t take that many people to type “She shoots him repeatedly. They beat each other to a pulp. Then stuff blows up.”
Granted, the reunion with Schwarzenegger’s T-800 is a crowd-pleasing thrill, although his presence centers around a heinous act from which the film never recovers … despite some (later) preposterous lip-service toward redemption. Ol’ Arnie, bless him, hasn’t anywhere near the acting chops to pull off that whopper.
We shouldn’t be surprised by this flick’s superficiality. Director Tim Miller’s sole previous big-screen feature was 2016’s Deadpool, which is nothing but exploitative, violently gory pandemonium. In fairness, that guilty pleasure benefited from its snarky attitude and cheerfully deplorable dark humor. Dark Fate has no humor whatsoever, despite Hamilton’s repeated efforts at thuddingly clunky one-liners.
Actually, the only genuinely funny moment comes when Schwarzenegger, deadpan as always, claims to be funny.
So … forget what you recall from previous Terminator entries. Following a fleeting flashback prologue with a younger Sarah Connor, Dark Fate opens during a typical family morning with Mexico City-based Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), her brother Diego (Diego Boneta), their father and their dog. Dani and Diego head off to work, little realizing that a highly advanced Terminator — a REV-9 (Gabriel Luna) — has just winked into existence a few blocks away.
Its mission: to execute Dani.
Fortunately, a bio-engineered super-soldier named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), also from the future, has similarly landed in the flash of a lightning-hued sphere. Cue the first of many melees between Grace and the REV-9, which begins in the auto factory where Dani and Diego work (actually the way-cool, state-of-the-art Mercedes factory in Kecskemét, Budapest), and then spills out onto the surrounding streets and freeways.
In many ways, this is the film’s most exciting chase and battle sequence: in part because we’re still getting a sense of Grace and the REV-9’s respective abilities, but mostly because it’s somewhat grounded in reality, in terms of its vehicular pursuit. (No question: A massive earthmover could do a lot of damage.)
Even so, this “classic” Terminator-style chase sequence reveals Miller’s mean-spirited penchant for callous collateral damage, in terms of civilian casualties: a tendency that becomes more frequent as the film continues, with the REV-9 blasting, maiming, slicing, dicing and disemboweling hundreds of cops, soldiers and assorted bystanders.
But back to the freeway. Grace’s impressive reflexes notwithstanding, she and Dani are inches from destruction, when … cue the arrival of Sarah, hefting a bad-ass gun that’s longer than she is tall. Even this only slows the REV-9, but it’s enough for our heroes to flee.
We pause, to armchair-quarterback what has just gone down.
The REV-9 has a metal endoskeleton with liquid metal skin (introduced by the T-1000, in Terminator 2) that can morph to imitate any human being, or harden into various bladed weapons. It also has the T-1000’s regenerative ability: Even if blasted into bits, the liquid metal remnants reassemble themselves into its original nasty self. Apparently, the REV-9 lacks the T-1000’s vulnerability to temperature extremes (at least, nobody tries that here).
But wait, there’s more! It also can “split off” into two entities, the second being an internal T-800 “skeleton” that attacks independently. (Yeah, right.)
Grace, for all her bio-enhancements, remains human to the degree that she’s covered with flesh, and (one assumes) her head and brain are mostly God-given original parts. The notion that she wouldn’t endure the world’s most serious case of road-rash, or that her face wouldn’t be shredded into hamburger, or that her whole head wouldn’t be pulped, or that she’d have any chance at all against this monster — as the confrontations become increasingly vicious — is simply absurd.
Which makes everything that follows equally ridiculous.
Despite having no apparent weaknesses, the REV-9 is never quite able to kill our heroes during the half-dozen encounters that follow the initial factory and freeway melee … which is the only reason this film is able to lurch from one ridiculous fracas to the next. We call this “selective strength,” and it’s the hallmark of sloppy, lazy scripting.
The physics-defying topper: a mid-air collision between a massive C-5 transport aircraft (with our heroes) and a refueling plane (piloted by the REV-9), and the subsequent lengthy battle that takes place while both planes miraculously remain airborne.
Pul-leaze.
Ol’ Sarah keeps blasting the REV-9 with heavy ordnance, for all the good that does; Schwarzenegger’s creaky T-800, once brought into the fray, seems equally ill-equipped. Grace has speed and agility on her side, but (big but) is left in a highly weakened state after each super-nova burst of ferocity; like a high-performance race car, she then needs refueling (medication). And plenty of water.
And how is it — talk about coming out of left field — that Sarah, a “dangerous wanted fugitive in all 50 states,” is suddenly able, at a crucial juncture, to call on a highly placed military buddy, in order to get some fancy high-tech weaponry?
Ahem.
Credit where due, Reyes is a solid heroine; she does reasonably well, transforming Dani from a bewildered and terrified innocent, into a plucky, stubborn and ultimately enraged warrior. When she gets pissed off enough to defy Grace and Sarah’s insistence that she remain in the background, where it’s safe (hah!), we believe Dani’s anger.
Davis puts heart and soul into imbuing Grace with the grit and rage necessary to make her a credible protector, and she certainly has the passion of one who takes her mission seriously. She’s also granted a bit of back-story: one of this film’s few welcome breaks from the relentless action.
Schwarzenegger is … well, the same as always. He gets further than most, with wooden line readings and squinty-eyed slow takes; there’s actually a pleasant familiarity to his thespic limitations.
Hamilton, 62 years young, retains the kick-ass presence that made her such a stand-out part of the first two Terminator films. On the other hand, her raspy, throaty voice bespeaks far too many cigarettes, and the hoarse result severely hampers any effort at acting intonation. Even so, she (more or less) successfully depicts Sarah as badly damaged goods, having lost complete touch with her humanity after years of battling other terminators.
Ah, yes. Other terminators. Which opens all sorts of questions, left unanswered, particularly with respect to how Sarah has known where to find them. Even after hearing this script’s flimsy attempt at an explanation, it makes no sense. Just like everything else in this clumsy script.
Miner eventually (at long last!) brings his film to a mind-bogglingly “happy” epilog: utterly ludicrous, in light of what we know must happen next (given the inevitability of future events). One can but bemoan the similar inevitability of yet another, further retconned entry in this tired, overcooked franchise.
Rarely have three words — “I’ll be back” — been less desirable.
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