Review of Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) by Honest-Yan — 04 Nov 2019

I knew the complaints about this movie going in. I wont mention them as they are spoilers but I think it was better going in knowing the faults with the film from the start; it helped me enjoy the movie for what it is- a failed reboot due to pandering to the social justice crowd.

It has quite good VFX and the action scenes are quite good. The new villain is quite good in concept and the actor who plays it is serviceable. It is distracting at times when a small, nonathletic woman (without superpowers) singlehandedly takes down a group of people that includes able bodied men.

It is also distracting from the narrative when an ethnic minority woman is chaperoned by an elderly woman and a crossdressing woman, while making statements about whiteness and the oppressive treatment of their wombs.

I sat through the political posturing so that I could see Schwarzenegger, who has much less screen time on this occasion, do his robot fighting antics at the end. I enjoyed the mindless fun. I am aware that this movie was written and produced by a bunch of white men and is a vehicle for a hyper-masculine white male icon so all this insincere faux-woke political posturing doesn't really hold much weight.

If the politics is not too irritating to you, you can turn of your brain and enjoy the explosions and robot skeletons.