"Welcome to the Day after Judgment Day"

Kaleidoscope's newest is on Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media's, & 20th Century Fox's production of "Terminator: Dark Fate".  Directed by Tim Miller, the movie stars Linda Hamilton, Mackenzie Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Natalia Reyes, & Gabriel Luna.  Rated 'R', it has a running time of 2 hr., 8 min.

The exposition occurs in 1998, 3 years after dodging the threat & destruction of Skynet, Sarah Connor (Hamilton) & her son John are living a peaceful life in Guatemala.  As they relax at a Tiki Bar, a T-800 Terminator (a CGI-young Schwarzenegger), sent from the future by Skynet before its demise, attacks them & kills John.  Transition 22 years later to Mexico City.  Here lives Dani Ramos (Reyes) with her father & brother.  Skynet has sent a more enhanced Terminator, called Rev-9 (Luna), to kill Dani.  Concurrently, the Resistance has sent a cybernetically enhanced human soldier, Grace (Davis), to protect Dani from Rev-9.&, hopefully, kill it.  Rev-9, with its shape-shifting metal, morphs into Dani's father, infiltrates the auto plant in which Dani & her brother work, & tries to kill them.  Grace appears & manages to get out with Dani & her brother.  Rev-9, with the new ability to have its endo-skeleton break off into a separate identity, gives chase.  Cornering them on a bridge & after killing Dani's brother, Sarah arrives, aided by someone who has sent her coordinates via text message, & temporarily incapacitates the Rev-9 with explosives, allowing Sarah, Grace, & Dani to escape.  Act I transitions here leading to the upcoming reunion with T-800 Carl (Schwarzenegger).

Director Miller keeps the action & plot moving at a brisk pace.  The viewer barely gets a chance to breathe before the next set piece occurs.  Part of the reason for this is in hopes that the viewer may not realize a sense of deja vu.  Unfortunately, the script by David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes, & Billy Ray, with a story by James Cameron & 5 others, is a retread of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" with nothing really new added.  Substitute Dani for the young John; Grace, Sarah, & Schwarzenegger as T-800/Carl for the T-800 of the 1991 film, and Luna's Gabriel/Rev-9 for Robert Patrick's T-1000.  The film's resolution is also straight out of the 1991 movie.  This makes for a very frustrating experience once one has left the theater & ruminates about the past 2 hours.  This is Hollywood's obsession with sequels taken to the extreme.  The acting here is problematic, also.  Hamilton, at age 63, almost seems to be 'goofing' on her exploits here as she tosses off lines with noticeable shrugs & a lack of seriousness.  It is nice to see her once again--for a while, at least.  Davis (AMC's "Halt & Catch Fire") is excellent as the cybernetically-enhanced human who is doing her best to fulfill her mission.  Schwarzenegger seems to be 'in' on the goings-on & is still able to throw out his patented one-liners with a cool effectiveness.  Reyes is convincing as an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstance.  One can envision her as the new John Connor.  Luna is fine as a Robert Patrick clone; not much more is expected of him.  Junkie XL's score is action picture generic; it only comes alive when it incorporates Brad Fiedel's iconic & powerful themes from Fiedel's original score for "The Terminator".& its sequel.  If only Miller had used Fiedel's music throughout.  Ken Seng's cinematography & Julian Clarke's editing are smooth & exhilarating, propelling the action at a feverish pace.  The morphing CGI is first-rate.

I give "Terminator: Dark Fate" 6 out of 10 nuggets.  Although the action sequences are thrilling, we have seen it all before.  There is nothing original here; it is simply a re-imagining of "Terminator 2: judgment Day"--and we already have that excellent film.  Wait for the movie 's appearance on  streaming or Showtime.