The Terminator franchise has unsuccessfully tried time and time again to reboot itself after the second film, Terminator 2: Judgement Day; Dark Fate is the fourth attempt at this strategy. Each time the franchise has been given another chance to impress their audience; they have received a mixture of reviews from both critics  and  the audience. The original, The Terminator, garnered a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and its sequel met similar acclaim with a 93%. The less profitable movies have received 69%, 33%, 27%. However, Dark Fate has received a  70%. 

With Dark Fate seemingly being the best Terminator movie since Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine, one would assume that surely it must be doing something right.

The movie’s first half is stationed in Mexico City where the audience is introduced to a new character in the series, Dani Ramos  who is played by Natalia Reyes. She lives a mundane life as a factory worker with her brother until she is disrupted by a new type of Terminator called Rev-9, played by Gabriel Luna. She then gets saved by Grace, an augmented human from the future played by Mackenzie Davis. 

The first half of the movie is primarily in Spanish with English subtitles, which was not as big of a problem  for  me  but  may  be for others. 

For the most part, I felt that the movie has a somewhat slow beginning until Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton, is introduced for the first time since the second movie. After Judgement Day, her son, John, got assassinated by another T-1000 that just disappeared into the ocean. Because of this, she started hunting terminators every couple of years based off of a mysterious contact texting her coordinates. This connection to   Judgement Day  was a nice aspect to the movie.

Through a big road trip sequence, the three main characters travel to Texas to meet the same T-1000 now under an alias Carl, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was Sarah’s original contact. Sarah distrusts him throughout much of the second half for obvious reasons. Eventually, the main group corners the REV-9  and does what they must to prevent the apocalyptic future.  This was the most fascinating part of the movie and is the main reason this movie received a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, which was appropriate.

Despite these aspects, I thought that Dark Fate was just another road trip action movie. The plot gets predictable and many of the characters’ thoughts and decisions in the final act can be seen coming from a mile away. It is certainly the best attempt at a reboot yet but it still cannot live up to the first two movies’ success. I would rate this movie a 7/10.