‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Movie Review Roundup: Action-Packed Storytelling With Humor

Director Tim Miller returns with the latest installment in the sci-fi franchise. Beloved Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are back to bring us more robotic escapades, fiery explosions and epic fight scenes. Headstrong Sarah Connor (played by Hamilton) continues her mission in fighting off bad guys and saving humanity, and adds some comic relief here and there for when things get too intense.

The movie was released on November 1. Thus far, it has scored 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.100

‘TERMINATOR: DARK FATE’ REVIEW ROUNDUP

“‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ is a movie designed to impress you with its scale and visual effects, but it’s also a film that returns, in good and gratifying ways, to the smartly packaged low-down genre-thriller classicism that gave the original ‘Terminator’ its kick.”

– Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“But like sinking into your favorite chair, “Dark Fate” soon settles into its most pleasurable and familiar groove, with the arrival of two pivotal characters from the first two films: Sarah, even more badass than her appearance in 1991’s “T2,” and a new, surprisingly domesticated version of Schwarzenegger’s T-800 model Terminator, who is calling himself Carl.” 

– Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post

“In other words, Dark Fate is Action-Cinema Mash-Up Spectacle 101 — half lumbering T-800, pushing itself forward with single-minded purpose and brute strength, and half Rev-9, all digital sleekness and bleeding-edge tech flexing.” 

– David Fear, Rolling Stone

“For all that, the film’s richest pleasures still come from the geriatrics: Hamilton is as tough and haunted as she was T2, but now she’s also funny.”

– Chris Klimek, NPR

“This one is in a different class—cobbled together by dunces in a last-ditch effort to wring revenue from a moribund concept. The plot makes no sense—time travel as multiverse Dada.”

– Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal

 

Watch the Terminator: Dark Fate official trailer below