The Terminator franchise has always been about trying to maintain hope for humanity’s future in the face of relentless mechanized onslaught (as personified by the titular cyborg assassins). The latest sequel/reboot, Terminator: Dark Fate , embraces that notion as it steers the series into a new direction while both acknowledging and jettisoning many of the hallmark trappings of the franchise so far. It’s an exciting, action-packed and often humorous reset that captures the spirit and pacing of the first two James Cameron entries in a way that none of the recent three films could. It’s the best Terminator film since T2: Judgment Day

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One key reason is that Dark Fate does not place Arnold Schwarzenegger front and center. He shows up later in the film and appears for just the right amount of screen time. Where the first Terminator used him judiciously as the villain and Judgment Day introduced a new version of his T-800 as a heroic protector figure, the Austrian Oak’s shadow loomed large — perhaps too large — over the next three films, even when he was reduced to just a digitally recreated cameo.What makes Terminator: Dark Fate succeed where Rise of the Machines Salvation , and Genisys failed is that it knows that A) less is more when it comes to the T-800/Arnold and B) the first two films worked because they were really about Sarah Connor and not the titular killing machine. Dark Fate brings back Linda Hamilton as an older, grizzled and very broken Sarah Connor and that is the best, smartest thing the film did to ensure it creatively succeeds where the last three Terminator franchise resets failed.Both Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger still exude all the charisma and badassery we came to love about their characterizations decades ago. The passage of time, however, has only added gravitas to their screen personas. Hamilton, in particular, amazes here as the shell of a woman Sarah once was. She channels the bitterness and brokenness of this film’s incarnation of Sarah, who saved the world at the end of T2 but didn’t exactly get the happy ending she may have expected her victory would bring. The future and human nature had other plans.Good thing then Sarah hasn’t spent the last few decades resting on her laurels. Like Jamie Lee Curtis in 2018’s Halloween , Hamilton’s return as Sarah Connor lends this film a validity and dramatic weight that subsequent T2 follow-ups lacked. She once again commands our attention, respect, and sympathy from the moment we see her back on screen. Sarah knows something will go wrong at some point and is ready to meet it with any lethal means at her disposal.But Sarah Connor is only one facet of Terminator: Dark Fate. Arnold Schwarzenegger also returns here as yet another T-800 . Without giving away any spoilers, it can be revealed that Dark Fate explores the human/Terminator dynamic without undermining the inherent tension in that relationship. That said, the film also finds a way to explain the age of Schwarzenegger’s character while adeptly mining that premise for fun and humor. However, Dark Fate also expects the viewer to make a few leaps in that character’s off-screen development that some may find convenient at best.Despite the return of Hamilton and Schwarzenegger, Terminator: Dark Fate is no mere exercise in nostalgia. While the story may hit several familiar beats — there’s a Terminator out to kill a woman who holds the key to humanity’s future survival against the machines, one prolonged chase ensues — it also deliberately loses other familiar staples in order to pivot away from merely regurgitating the same characters and continuity the franchise has explored for the last few decades. Dark Fate is a big gamble in that sense but it’s a wise one that will hopefully give this venerable but exhausted franchise a new lease on life. (And if it the series just ended here, Terminator: Dark Fate would also serve as a fitting swan song.)Director Tim Miller’s exciting and breathlessly-paced film succeeds in introducing new protagonists for us to cling to, namely Natalia Reyes’ Dani Ramos and Mackenzie Davis’ Grace. Reyes is basically this film’s answer to the 1984 original’s Sarah Connor but with some key deviations, while Davis’ cybernetically augmented super-soldier is sort of the Kyle Reese equivalent as her selfless protector. Both actresses shine in their dramatic and action scenes. Reyes, in particular, hasn’t been at the forefront of pre-release press for this film, but she nearly steals the show. Mackenzie Davis also delivers a bravura action heroine turn here, kicking lots of ass yet never losing sight of the human, emotional core driving her character.Gabriel Luna is this film’s Robert Patrick/T-1000 , finding those deviously human moments to hide his murderous Rev-9 ’s facade behind even as he inflicts nothing but pain and chaos on everyone around him. While his character, outside of the twinning effect his Rev-9 can perform, doesn’t necessarily do anything we haven’t quite seen in the franchise before, Luna’s villain’s ingenuity and relentlessness amply fuel our heroes’ (and by extension, the viewers’) anxiety.These new and returning characters help lend the film’s many thrilling action set-pieces an emotional authenticity and heft lacking in the last few sequels. When a Terminator tries to kill someone here you care and aren’t just going through the motions. The visual effects, coupled with the actors’ performances, lend these scenes the same sort of tactility and genuine danger the first two films mastered. While none of the Terminator sequels have topped the T-1000’s visual effects ingenuity and cunning as an antagonist, Dark Fate still makes the Rev-9 a close second.Dark Fate’s action set-pieces have the appropriate tension we’ve come to expect from the franchise, with director Tim Miller delivering several big, crowd-pleasing battles throughout that echo the spirit and execution of James Cameron’s original two Terminator films. Dark Fate never outdoes what Cameron did with his first two installments did, but it erases the damage done to the franchise by three successive failed restarts.