It’s back and it really works

REBOOTS, remakes, sequels, prequels, spinoffs, retreads, Hollywood truly is a quagmire of polishing and reupholstering old ideas these days.

The Terminator franchise fell afoul of this strip-mining mentality with the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the

Machines, which sounded some warning bells that things were about to go downhill.

It wasn’t a terrible flick, but through it and the movies that followed — Terminator

Salvation and Terminator

Genisys — the time-travelling and history-changing got so convoluted that the entire story’s timeline became a twisted burning trainwreck that even the writers didn’t seem to know how to salvage.

Also, creator/director James Cameron essentially walked away from the franchise after Terminator 2, with the last three movies having no involvement from him at all.

So, in an effort to revitalise the franchise Cameron has returned to the helm for

Terminator: Dark Fate, which consigns the last three Terminator movies to the bin and serves as a follow-up to Terminator 2.

And, quite frankly, it was a great idea.

By disregarding everything that happened in the last three movies, Terminator: Dark Fate picks up the story at a point where, well, everything still makes sense and brings back that vital ingredient that had been missing since T2.

Linda Hamilton is Sarah Connor. At the end of T2, Sarah and John Connor destroyed the embryonic Skynet before it could become self-aware and destroy humanity in 1997.

But while they prevented Judgement Day from happening, something else in the future still wasn’t quite right.

Dark Fate picks up the tale in the year 2020, when another new Terminator, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) arrives from the future to assassinate someone. But this time is isn’t a Connor, rather a young Mexican girl named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes).

Luckily for Ramos, a cybernetically enhanced super soldier named Grace (Mackenzie Davis) has also been sent back from the future to protect her, and Sarah Connor also joins the team.

In narrative terms, the big innovation in Dark Fate is that it doesn’t simply spend two hours trying to save John Connor (again) and prevent Judgement Day (again).

We’ve been there, covered that in T2, and things really should have just moved on from there in the first place. So instead, Dark Fate simply assumes that the timeline has now shifted, the future has changed, and it takes things in a new direction, with a new future to contend with and new humans central to the fight against new machines.

Sure, there are plenty of call-backs and references to the first two Terminator movies but writer David

Goyer (whose resume includes luminary hits such as Dark

City and Batman Begins, as well as the epic stinker Batman v

Superman) resists the temptation to just lazily plop some classic lines in here and there for fan service.

There were a couple of moments where I thought they were lining up to throw out a “Hasta la Vista” but the moment passed, and instead these iconic lines are referred to in slightly more oblique ways, which is far more satisfying and less obnoxious.

However, the alleged twist at the halfway mark is not even close to being a surprise, since you will know what’s coming if you’ve seen the trailer — why big distributors keep spoiling the best twist of the movie in their trailers I will never understand.

But yeah, you already know Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an appearance here, so his “climactic” entrance is probably the least surprising moment of the entire film. However, his significance in the story might not be quite what you’re expecting.

Conversely, the future significance of Dani Ramos also isn’t quite what you’re led to expect either but the big reveal in this case is not quite as clever as I had hoped it would be.

Nonetheless, the three main protagonists are simply magnificent on screen, perfectly cast and with a great chemistry that renders their actions and personalities completely believable, even at those times when the plot stumbles a little.

Hamilton, Reyes and Davis sell it.

Sarah Connor is just such a great character, and seeing Hamilton back in the role is fantastic, especially seeing the way the character has changed and evolved in the intervening 25 years.

Davis is magnificent as Grace, tall and lean and weirdly imposing, walking like she’s made of lead, but clearly the heart and soul of the story.

Luna’s performance as the Rev-9 has some interesting shades of Robert Patrick’s T1000, which I liked, and even Arnie turns in a surprisingly nuanced performance.

And apart from some spotty CGI in places, the action sequences are top notch and suitably over the top, also building some fairly respectable tension at times. Terminator: Dark Fate removes all the overcomplications that have plagued the last three movies in the franchise and gets back to basics: a pursuit movie. And it is much better for it. Terminator: Dark Fate (MA15) is now showing.