brayzie

I don't think it's common to hear or read criticism of it as strong as "horrible piece of shit." It's the one sequel that tried to be different and yet it's the least entertaining installment.

Tom Banjo

Hell yeah, let’s have a movie where the Predators come back for some hunting, but find that Judgment Day has happened since their last visit. So they’re like, fuck it, let’s hunt these robots instead. But when they land they’re all “why do all these things look like the dude that kicked Chad’s ass 35 Earth years ago?” And then the rest of the movie is just progressively cooler weapon tech being used on both sides, until eventually the Predators blow up a ship full of Xenomorphs over the main Skynet server building, and the acid blood melts all the circuitry beyond repair. Mid credits scene: just before the server dies, Skynet fires up the time machine, sending a T-800 back in time and to the jungles of Central America, where it immediately kills Dutch and takes his place. To be continued in the sequel with Skynet controlling actual spaceships. Arnold vs. Engineers!

Spiderbite

I want this movie! Now!

Osiris3657

I thought of something this morning. It's not a major deal, but in the flashback scene, the stars from T2 look virtually the same. That's fine for the adults as T2 took place in 1995 and this scene in 1998, but John went from 10 to 13 during that time period and looked exactly the same. Guess they kept the same look/age for nostalgia's sake.

story

Agreed, it's the mashup we deserve!

I sometimes think this is what will happen with the Harry Potter franchise and Millennials. Their kids will go, "Big whoop, mom and dad, we're freshloading our brainscans of Trendosaurz. THIS will stand the test of time!"

TomOpus

The scores of the poll are wildly divergent, along with the comments in here.

That said, I'll see this on Thursday using my Alamo Drafthouse Season Pass. From what I gather, it's a better action movie than a terminator movie. So my expectations have been adjusted.

joe_b

I found the script and all the new characters thoroughly mediocre, but I still enjoyed Linda Hamilton in this. She was at least worth the price of a matinee ticket

Artman

I thought AMC changed their times to be when the movie actually starts because I walked in just as the movie was starting (turns out I guess it was a one off mistake)...thankfully I got there when I did because this had a hell of an opening five minutes. Hands down the best de-aging scene yet (key word there is it being a limited scene)...and I liked it a lot. However, as the paint by numbers movie played out over the next two hrs I found myself wishing this movie chose another route. While I enjoyed the film overall, I didn't think it was much better than Rise of the Machines or Salvation... they're about on the same level imo.

I"m so tired of CG characters jumping around, and this movie had it in every scene... did they use stunt people for anything? I did appreciate that you could tell Tim Miller was a fan of the series...and I did like the little nods here and there... but his action scenes had no build up or tension...it just felt like nothing was really at stake. As a final film (famous last words, but I think losing 100million will do it) I'm satisfied. The series was never really meant to go past 2 anyways...everything since has just been cover songs...each with their own take on it.

I knew the powered off shot would happen...and got a kick out of it when it did.

Meathead

Friend and I caught this last night. We both enjoyed it but agreed... they really need to stop making them.

Much better than anything after T2.

candyrocket786

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TomOpus

It was okay. Having Arnold and Linda back kinda puts a coda on it.

story

I caught this last night. This is the sort of movie A-List was made for: not a must-see, not an automatic skip-it, but if there's a convenient showtime and enough interest, I'll go for it. That's where I was at with it last night, and I caught the 9:30pm show.

I had fun. Ultimately, you know (most, at least) they live and fight another day, but there were some thrills for me. Good chases, just enough exposition to follow the situation, and a good use of flash-forward that mostly set out to do what they intended to do. The Rev-9 truly felt like the most indestructible Terminator we've ever seen. That added to the tension for me. Each time I wondered, I know they're going to get out of this one, but how? That's what a good chase movie should do.

I liked the cargo plane scene, with some unique gravity situations, and the drop into the water was cool. Carl really worked for me, in pretty much every single way. And his relationship with Sarah worked for me, too. I like the idea of Sarah Connor: Terminator Hunter. I've never seem the show, no idea if that's what she did. But with all the flash-forward, this could've been a fun flashback.

It never quite got to the level of heart of T2, though that's tough to do. I think the relationship between Dani and Grace was the crux of this movie and it just wasn't there enough on the screen. Anybody see The Peanuts Movie? Without spoiling, there's a character who tells Charlie Brown all the things he did were great when he missed them and it really lights up his heart. When Grace tells Dani how she saves her in the future, it could've been great for her to reflect on the privilege of knowing her now, to see her leadership in ways she doesn't even see in herself, yet. That, of course, would mean we'd of needed to see Dani develop over the movie instead of turn on a dime to kick off the kill box scene and get tough as nails only then. If she'd had moments of getting tough in the midst of her fear more, she and Grace could've had that great missing moment.

Dani didn't have nearly the development as young Sarah in T1, but maybe that's because of several characters needing to explain their story, while Dani's story to come was being held back from her, and us. A little bit of transparent telegraphing going on, like Grace holding back info on Dani, getting texts from "someone," and who the "commander" is. And if I have one complaint, it's the scale felt small. Maybe it's because the days of big sets with tons of extras are gone, but even with large locations in this one it was clearly CGI and no matter how gigantic that dam set was, it still felt smaller than the forge works maze of T2 - especially when they keep the fight in the same 1000-square foot area.

Someone mentioned how it's weird the Legion Rev-9 is called a Terminator when Skynet never existed. Maybe it was in the Pitch Meeting video. But did Grace ever call it that? I think it was all Sarah, and Grace just went with it.

The throwaway line in T3, "Judgment day is inevitable" takes on new meaning with Legion, and really, that makes sense to me. If anything makes sense in this movie, it's that other line from T2: "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves." Philosiphically, so many of us have to hit rock bottom before we make the changes we need to make. I didn't feel the legacy of John Connor was screwed over, I didn't feel like all that work was for nothing, it's simply part of how it goes. That's hard. I think that's part of why I've seen people get frustrated with movies that show characters struggling 20 years after the last movie when they won. Its tough to face our mortality, that a happy ending here doesn't guarantee a happy ending later, and that life has ups and downs. There's a lot to chew on there, I think.

I'll go 3.5 out of 5, and I'd see it again.

E Unit

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the first and only review to have this movie get compared to....The Peanuts Movie.

story

That's why I'm here for you, people: controversial Terminator / Peanuts Movie hot takes.

JeremyM

You know, Terminator and Charlie Brown were both big parts of my childhood, so I'm here for any and all takes comparing the two!

Hazel Motes

I've noticed across the web a lot of people calling this the best post T2, Terminator movie, like thats an accoplishment of some kind. Infact I've noticed this type of phrasing for a few different franchises. It's amusing. Calling this the best Terminator movie outside of the first two is a polite way of saying that of all the sequels that suck, this one sucks the least.

Draven

I have a weird affection for 3. The idea of a Terminator controlling other machines was really awesome and I liked the female version too.

DJariya

I'm disappointed that this was such a bust financially. It's made $200M worldwide, but with it's insane budget, it's a big money loser. It's going to make less than Genisys 4 years ago and most people hated that movie and it got shitty critics scores and audience reviews.

Right now it's at 71% and 83% on RT. It's the best reviewed Terminator movie in years. But, I guess there was simply no demand for it this time around. I had a feeling this movie was in trouble when they announced early ticket sales and I periodically checked my local AMC's and none of the auditoriums were even remotely filled up.

Mike86

MLBFan24

Finally saw this and overall, it’s an ok movie in my opinion.

As a stand-alone movie, it is entertaining. Definitely lots of action, but it reminded me of Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions action. Slow motion action and video game CGI heavy jumping. I hate that stuff.

Another Terminator movie and I still stand by my statement that Salvation is the best one amongst the new sequels (films 3 through 6).

The practical effects and Future War plot of Salvation were really good.

So for Dark Fate, I think it’s an ok Terminator movie, but an entertaining action movie. But I’m disappointed the continuity is all over the place with this franchise.

and lastly, the de-aging of Sarah and John Connor was really good!

tanman

This was one of the most impressive VFX scenes I've ever seen. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. It was absolutely unreal. It's amazing how far this technology has come just within the last couple years. And then in the same movie just a few mins before you had the scene with the terminators storming the beach which looked absolutely terrible. Seriously CGI just doesn't look right on the terminator endoskeletons for some reason.

Yeah I really appreciate that as well. But this is coming from James Cameron who was involved with the top two badass women in cinema (IMHO).

Yeah you really would have thought they would have learned from the Transformers franchise imploding and then being saved by the much lower budgeted Bumblebee.

Pretty much my opinion. I can't make up my mind if this was just a mediocre to bad movie or the best movie since T2 and those two things are not mutually exclusive descriptors.

tanman

I thought it was just okay. I absolutely loved seeing Linda Hamilton back on the big screen. Yeah she's old, yeah she sounds like a future throat cancer patient. But that's exactly what I loved about her portrayal. Why isn't this movie being hailed with her portrayal as a naturally aged woman that can still kick ass on the screen. She was so believable as an older Sarah Conner. I really applaud her for this role.

I agree with everyone else that the throwback scene was absolutely amazing. I think I'm decent at noticing VFX in movies and when things have been "enhanced" but at least for my first viewing it was indistinguishable from plucking Linda Hamilton et. al. from 25 years ago and having them film a scene. As far as them killing John off like that I'm not so sure about that. The comparisons to Alien 3 are apt and it would be worse if this franchise was more relevent then it is right now. As it stands this is the dying gasp of a dead franchise so it feels flat. Still doesn't feel right killing him off after being the whole focus of T1 and T2.

I'm not sure what to think about Carl. I really liked him of course Arnie is just awesome and I liked how he fit into the story. I just don't buy it that a terminator stuck in the past with a fulfilled mission would turn into Carl.

I consider it a nice what if? Story line. I think the problem with the terminator series is time travel. It's very difficult, impossible even, to have time travel be such an integral part of the story AND expand it to more and more movies. The first two were such a unique idea and a smaller scoped story so the logic fit. Keep expanding on that premise and it get tougher and tougher to keep everything together.

6/10

For me the terminator trilogy consist of the Terminator, T2, and T2-3D. People forget about/never experienced T2-3D and it's too bad. That served as an awesome epilogue to T2.

Why So Blu?

The UHD just went live and I could have sworn in the theatrical cut it showed the first shotgun blast hit John in the chest. Here, there was a cutaway then Sarah gets knocked over and John gets shot again while he's down on the ground. Am I mis-remembering that first shotgun blast hit?

Draven

Here’s a YouTube clip from a month ago that shows it how you describe.

JeremyM

I wonder if a censored international version was inadvertently uploaded. I hope they fix it.