FILM OF THE WEEK
Terminator: Dark Fate
Cert: 15A; Now Showing
Well, he said he would be back, and The Terminator is clearly a machine of his word. For a fourth time (in the fifth film in the Terminator franchise) the unmistakeable Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as the machine from the future.
This time he isn’t the machine sent back from that future, or not exactly. A different machine has been sent back from a different future and, having nearly melted my own brain trying to work it all out and coming up with only a series of “But...” I recommend you just do not overthink it. If you like massive films with massive fights and explosions, just go and enjoy the machines and big bangs.
This time around there is a new Terminator machine (Gabriel Luna) who appears in Mexico to take out a young woman called Dani (Natalia Reyes) because some time in the future from which he comes, Dani will be a threat.
But Dani fans in the future have sent Grace (Mackenzie Davis) a souped-up human to defend Dani. It’s no easy feat but who should rock up only Sara Connor (Linda Hamilton), still grieving her son John and raging because she thought she had all that future robot malarkey sorted. I think. And somewhere along the line they pick up Arnie.
Deadpool director Tim Miller takes over the reins (James Cameron is still very much in evidence as producer and storyboarder) and delivers non-stop thumping, chases, explosions, a fair few F words and all round action bedlam. You can see where the estimated $200m budget went. The script by David S Goyer, Justin Rhodes and Billy Ray is grand but pedestrian.
At two and a quarter hours, I felt it was way too long. The whole point of the robots is that they’re indestructible so in theory I could still be sitting in the cinema I suppose, but I did catch myself wishing someone, anyone would be terminated well before the end.
However, there is an undeniable kind of glee in seeing two pensioners (OK, at 63 Hamilton doesn’t quite qualify, but Arnie is 72) tout heavy artillery out the open cargo door of a plane in flight. It’s also great to see women lead the action and there is a good tweak on the franchise’s female archetype.