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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nIt\nhas been four years since we\u2019ve had a Terminator movie with 2015\u2019s \u201cTerminator:\nGenisys.\u201d But it has been 28 years since we\u2019ve had a good Terminator movie with\n1991\u2019s \u201cTerminator 2: Judgment Day.\u201d The series\u2019 third, fourth, and fifth\ninstallments dragged down the franchise so much that I expected to leave\n\u201cTerminator: Dark Fate\u201d complaining about a 4:2 bad-to-good ratio with these\nmovies. Instead, I liked the movie, which gives this franchise an even 3:3\nratio, so it\u2019s exactly halfway decent. Given the losing streak it\u2019s been on for\nnearly three decades, I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be happy to take \u201chalfway decent.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nworld of the Terminators is filled with multiple timelines, this one throws out\nall that came since the second movie, undoubtedly for the best. In this\ntimeline, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) was able to save her\nfuture-resistance-leader son John in 1995, but not from a robotic T-800\nassassin (franchise face Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent to kill him in 1998.\nStill, the fateful 1997 robot uprising has been prevented, but another\nunrelated one might be on its way because humans are just determined to invent robots\nthat will destroy us all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\n2020, Dani (Natalia Reyes) is having a typically crummy day when she\u2019s targeted\nfor termination by the Rev-9 (Diego Boneta), a robotic assassin from the future\nthat can change its appearance with a simple physical contact, yet always\nreverts back to looking like Diego Boneta for dramatic effect. Dani is rescued\nby Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a time-traveling \u201caugmented\u201d human with robotic\nparts. She has about ten seconds to explain her complicated, implausible\nmission to Dani. Fortunately, Dani has just learned that robot assassins from\nthe future disguised as members of her family are a thing, so plausibility has\nnever been less of an issue with her. It turns out that the Rev-9 can split\nhimself into two distinct killing machines, and Grace and Dani can\u2019t fight them\nboth off at once, so in steps the returning Sarah Conner for the save.\nFollowing the battle, the two and a half humans go on the run together, until\nthey pick up a fourth member that keeps the count at two and a half humans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\nmakes this movie work is that the five leads are just a lot of fun to watch. If\n(and I mean \u201cif\u201d) Dani is going to give birth to the future leader of the human\nuprising, it won\u2019t be hard to see where the kid gets their (non-robotic) iron\nwill. Grace\u2019s real attributes are her fearlessness and loyalty, which she\u2019d\nhave even without all her parts and circuits. Sarah is making her third proper\nappearance in a \u201cTerminator\u201d movie, and this is the third proper \u201cTerminator\u201d\nmovie, which can\u2019t be a coincidence. The Rev-9, with his enhanced social\ninteraction feature, makes for a surprisingly charming villainous killer robot.\nAnd the T-800 gets to steal a few scenes with some expectedly crowd-popping\none-liners and an unexpectedly emotional storyline, including a heart-wrenching\nturn on a very familiar phrase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\ncan\u2019t say that the movie surrounding these characters is all that great.\nThere\u2019s nothing in the story that \u201cTerminator\u201d fans won\u2019t see coming, though\nthe upside is that there\u2019s no ridiculous swerve for the sake of a swerve like\nin \u201cGenisys.\u201d There\u2019s some heavy-handed support of feminism, criticism of\nborder security, and as always, commentary on how we\u2019re already slaves to\ntechnology. Even the action is largely forgettable, with lots of obstructive\nshooting and explosions that are hard to follow and are pretty pointless anyway\nsince the robots can always just fix themselves after getting blown to\nsmithereens. It\u2019s the characters on the other ends of all that artillery that\nmake \u201cTerminator: Dark Fate\u201d worth watching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTerminator: Dark Fate\u201d is rated R\nfor violence throughout, language and brief nudity. Its running time is 128\nminutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver It has been four years since we\u2019ve had a Terminator movie with 2015\u2019s \u201cTerminator: Genisys.\u201d But it has been 28 years since we\u2019ve had a good… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}