Going to see Terminator: Dark Fate was a last-minute decision for me. Someone hit me up a few hours before the movie and asked if I wanted to see it. I said yes, even though I haven’t watched the past Terminator movies since middle school and had nothing but Arnold Schwarzenegger famous “I’ll be back” line in my memory to go off.
The main cast was primarily full of female heroines. Linda Hamilton played Sarah Connor, as she did in the first two Terminators. Mackenzie Davis played Grace, a human cyborg. Natalia Reyes played Dani Ramos; a human being hunted by a terminator from the future. The only males were Arnold Schwarzenegger who played a terminator (an older version) and Gabriel Luna who played the evil updated terminator in this movie.
It was very nostalgic to see Arnold in the movie. Sarah Connor said his famous line “I’ll be back” during the first half of the movie, in a very badass scene, which can also be seen in the trailer. In the movie, Arnold says, “I won’t be back.” I found the line very corny and that’s all I’ll say about that.
There seemed to be a little bit of symbolism going on during the movie. The first terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) was sent to kill Sarah Conner because her son was destined to become a savior. In Terminator: Dark Fate, it follows a similar plot. The terminator (Gabriel Luna) going after Dani because of her fate. In both plots, each terminator resembled a male and was going after a powerful female.
I feel like both movies emphasize that women have (and have always) had a strong influence on how our future will look. The fact that they feel the need to send terminators after them, also, symbolizes that they’re afraid of these women.
The movie was only 2 hours and 14 minutes which didn’t seem very long to me while sitting in the movie theater. Compared to two of the other Terminator movies, the first being 1 hour and 48 minutes, the second being 2 hours and 36 minutes, Terminator: Dark Fate was the perfect amount of time.
The entire movie was full of action. There were only brief moments throughout the movie where there wasn’t any fighting or overly dramatic things going on. I felt like I didn’t blink the entire time while watching; being that it’s in the fantasy/sci-fi genre that isn’t surprising.
Terminator: Dark Fate opened with a domestic box office around 29 million. Which isn’t necessarily good but isn’t a bad start. The theater I went to was pretty full and only a few seats were open when we picked ours. Overall, I felt the movie was great.