Terminator: Dark Fate

There now follows a review of a not-very-good film from a few years ago. Feel free to skip this one!

Over the past few years, Hollywood has hit on the marvellous wheeze whereby they can make hundreds of millions by retelling exactly the same stories as in the 70's, 80's, and 90's but with a female protagonist. Which is a bit tedious, but is absolutely fair enough - boys had it all their own way for decades, and turnaround is fair play.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to have mentioned to the team behind this film that the scheme doesn't actually work if you already had a female protagonist - in this case, Sarah Connor.

The upshot here is that we have a film that is essentially a retread of "Terminator 2", sometimes looking like a shot-by-shot remake. Pretty much all it has going for it are updated special effects... that somehow are both technically superior but look much more dated.

The film also commits the cardinal sin of the remake (in a manner I haven't seen since "Alien 3") - in an instant, right at the start of the film, it completely negates and trivialises everything that has gone before. Everything that our heroes fought and suffered for is rendered meaningless. Good job.

Beyond that, there's not much to say. It's probably the third-best Terminator film, but pretty much by default. The protrayal of Sarah Conner is genuinely great. But the film is really not worth watching for that - it's two hours I'd rather have back.

Avoid.