Terminator: Dark Fate is the sixth installment in James Cameron’s Terminator franchise, and while it is the sixth installment. It serves as a standalone film, but a sequel to Terminator 2: Judgement Day.
The film stars Mackenzie Davis (Blade Runner 2049) as Grace. Arnold Schawarzenegger, who reprises his role as the T-800 Terminator. Linda Hamilton as Sarah Conner and Gabriel Luna as the Rev-9 Terminator.
After the events of T2: Judgement Day. Sarah Connor is alive and well with her son John Connor, basking in their victory after defeating the T-1000 Terminator. That all comes to a halt when a T-800 model Terminator from the future, suddenly arrives and successfully completes its mission by killing John Connor. Twenty-three years after the death of John Connor a new target has been marked. Dani Ramos who lives in Mexico City. Grace a cybernetically-enhanced human has also been sent back to the past to protect Dani from the Rev-9 Terminator played by Gabriel Luna.
During his hunt for Dani, the Rev-9 Terminator claims the life of Dani’s father and her brother Diego. As the Rev-9 gains the upper-hand, he is stopped momentarily by Sarah Connor, who probably has the most epic entrance in the entirety of this film. She arrives and shows how much more of a badass she has become throughout the years. W
During this time we are caught up to date with Sarah Connor and how she was able to find the exact location of Grace, Dani, and the Rev-9 Terminator. It is revealed that whenever a new Terminator arrives, she receives a text message with coordinates to each location. All messages are ended with the phrase “For John”. We can safely assume that all of these Terminators have been slain by Sarah Connor throughout the years, all leading up to her encounter with Grace and Dani. Grace reveals that in her future, John Connor and Skynet are nonexistent. Instead, an AI called Legion has taken over. Humans rose against it, in turn causing a nuclear war, and in turn causing a nuclear holocaust. Legion has taken upon themselves to build a global network of Terminators to exterminate any and all surviving humans.
Once the dust fully settles…for now…Grace traces back those text messages and finds the location to the person who’s been sending said messages. The person behind the text messages is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800. Who has assimilated to human life after the success of his
Carl agrees to join the fight against the new Terminator. After a brief training session with Dani, the newly formed team leave Carl’s home because it is no longer a safe place. The Rev-9 Terminator arrives shortly after and his hunt for Dani ensues once again.
The goal now is to seek out a military-grade EMP. Paths collide and a massive showdown goes down between the team and the Terminator. The recently acquired EMP has now been destroyed. Grace teases that her power source could be of use against the Terminator, but the team refuses to take that risk. It is here that the film reveals that Dani is the key. She is who sent Grace to the past to protect her younger self as she is the one who starts the resistance against Legion in the future. Highly reminiscent of Terminator: Salvation.
As the climactic battle takes place Rev-9 faces off against the group inside the plant. The team forces Rev-9 into a spinning turbine, damaging him and his endoskeleton heavily. This causes the turbine to explode, damaging everyone in the group. Grace, severely wounded tells Dani to pull out her power source, thus killing her in the process. Dani then uses it to kill the Rev-9 Terminator. The Rev-9 is down but not out, and T-800 in self-sacrifice plummets himself and the Rev-9 to their death, thus defeating it for good.
This film was set to erase all the other films from the timeline, only keeping T1-T2, and now T: DF as official canon. The film does pull bits from each of the films that are no longer canon. The film is not bad at all but it does lack character moments. Which hurts the film and doesn’t really make you care for much of these characters and what they have to endure, despite watching them for 2+ hours. The action beats are very very solid, and the trailers don’t do it much justice. In the same breath, a lot of the big moments of the film were shown during the trailer so the weight they were meant to hold was no longer there because you already knew they were coming.
Dani also felt like she was just there for the ride. Gabriel, on the other hand, was very solid as a Terminator. Very reminiscent of the T-1000 of Terminator 2. Which is something I was personally very, very happy
Terminator: Dark Fate is now playing in theaters everywhere.