With this being the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise, I felt that it was important for me to watch it so I could form an objective opinion about this polarizing movie. The trailers have laid out quite the few usual beats for a Terminator movie: a terminator's been sent back into the past to hunt down a target, and similarly, a protector has also been sent after the same target; this sounds like pretty much the synopsis for any Teminator movie, but what makes things slightly different this time around is that Sarah Connor and Arnie's T-800 are also along for the ride.
The talk around town was that this would reboot the continuity thus rewriting Terminator III: Rise of the Machines and Terminator Genisys out of the mythos. This was the same exact move that Terminator Genisys attempted to pull and failed at; this is simply because it would take a singularly innovative and enjoyable movie for that to succeed. Unfortunately, this movie also fails miserably at the same task.
Due to the fact that Terminator Salvation is the only true post-apocalyptic outing in this franchise, I will not really refer to it. Say what you will about Rise of the Machines and Genisys, but they at least added small increments to Terminator lore: Rise of the Machines gave us the T-X, the hybrid metallic core with a polymimetic alloy surface; similarly, Genisys gave us the T-3000 hybrid human and phase matter Terminator, however, it delved further into the T-800s role as a true surrogate father.
This movie actually appears to have taken cues from all aforementioned entries in the franchise, particularly Rise of the Machines and Genisys. They start off the movie by not skipping a beat and immediately changing a basic part of Terminator lore. This is not a "spoiler" review so I will refrain from spoiling the surprise. Suffice it to say, it really doesn't help and it left a sour taste in my mouth from the beginning. From there we get into the regular cat-and-mouse game of finding and protecting the unwitting human, Daniella "Dani" Ramos.
The villainous terminator this time around is the REV-9 portrayed by Gabriel Luna. This is pretty much similar in design to the T-X, with the added advantage that both the metal core and surface alloy can split apart to form 2 independently acting machines. The principal human protector, Grace (portrayed by Mackenzie Davis), is an augmented human whose enhancements come at a bit of a cost.
The only enjoyable thing about watching this was seeing the return of Sarah Connor and Arnie's T-800. Sarah is still the tough-as-nails badass that she established in T2. However, she's grizzled and particularly bitter, far from being the hopeful soul that she was at the end of that movie. She clashes repeatedly with Grace when it comes to protecting Dani. Despite her age, she shows that she's still the capable fighter who'd birth and train humanity's last hope.
It is always a pleasure to see Arnold Schwarzenegger return to this iconic role. The mechanics for this have always existed in the lore, elucidated by Terminator Genisys. Due to the fact that he has living skin draped over his metallic core, the skin (and hair) age and wear away just like normal human skin would; thus he would appear to age just like we would. Also, as an ode to T2, he is capable of learning; in a deleted scene from T2, a function of his memory needed to be switched out of "Read-Only" mode for this to be achieved. They use a different story mechanism this time, but the outcome is the same: he has learnt.
That just leaves us with the rest of the movie. How they managed to serve us the usual Terminator tropes, but to do it in such a miserable fashion is beyond me. Dani Ramos (Natalie Reyes) is the least believable future heroine you will ever encounter (and that's even when you rank her against Emilia Clarke). Mackenzie Davis plays Grace with an angst that makes her seem mostly irreverent and unpleasant. From the story's standpoint it's understandable: she is after all this generation's Kyle Reese. (I remember how unlikable he was when I first watched him onscreen). Just seems a little wasteful for the film makers to take us down this path once again, especially when a lot of that irreverence is aimed towards Sarah Connor.
This is also a very slow story - heavy on set up, but doesn't quite pay off in the end. And for goodness sake, the CGI is a let down. There's some good CGI work here, especially when it comes to de-aging, however, some of the action just doesn't appear weighted in reality. I've been catching occasional clips of T2 on Youtube lately, and even now it's CGI, which was groundbreaking even way back then, still holds up better than a lot of the CGI in this movie. I think wire-work or even a stunt-double could've done a better job when it came to portraying human movement than the CGI doubles.
A lot of people will comment on the fact that this movie will attempt to satisfy the social justice warriors (SJW) concerning the need for a strong female protagonist. I think that director Tim Miller and the producers are misguided in this regard. James Cameron and Linda Hamilton were able to give us one of the strongest female protagonists in Sarah Connor without ever needing to pander to such sentiments. That nostalgia paired with her fortitude still makes an older Sarah Connor as strong a character as ever. For them to try to scuttle that by juxtaposing the story of the Virgin Mary and Sarah's womb in this outing fails miserably. It makes watching the movie that much more jarring, and hopelessly telegraphs Dani's fate. I was not impressed one bit
I came out of this movie angry as hell; angry at myself and I'm not even the one to blame. They have scraped the bottom of the barrel with this movie, and I can definitively say that there is nothing left for them to show us. This outing has effectively killed the soul of this franchise. Never thought I'd find myself saying this, but do yourself a favour and give this one a wide berth. Only worth watching on bootleg DVD. D+ for this one.
God Bless.
P.S: My ranking for movies in this franchise (best to worst) is:
- T2
- The Terminator
- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
- Terminator Salvation
- Terminator Genisys
- Terminator: Dark Fate
