Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

It’s not often that I get really excited about a movie from the coming attractions.  It’s maybe once every few years, on average.  When I heard that there was going to be a new Terminator movie that had the involvement of both Linda Hamilton and James Cameron, I got excited.  I mean, I knew kind of what to expect.  It was going to be an action movie and maybe have some sort of paradox to think about.

I didn’t get exactly what I expected.

The trailers presented an action movie, and there was a good deal of action.  They hinted at the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but not as much as I would have expected.  It seems like the movie is trying to do something new, but is instead putting a new face on the same idea.

We now have a new savior of humanity in the form of Dani Ramos.  Skynet is gone, but there’s a new, similar threat that humanity needs saving from.  Grace is sent back from the future to protect Dani from the REV-9, a new two-in-one Terminator.  It has a solid-metal endoskeleton with a liquid-metal terminator covering it, making for an extra target when the script calls for it.  Sarah Connor finds them all because she’s getting texts from an anonymous benefactor.  (I’ll give you three guesses who that benefactor is.)  So, the race is on to save Dani and figure out exactly what her role is in the future.

The movie was entertaining.  It had the action I would expect from a Terminator movie.  There’s an advanced robot from the future trying to change that future with lots of guns and explosions, plus at least one protector that’s above average in terms of comb at skills.  Still, I found the movie lacking.  It’s almost like the movie was written to what we would expect of it.

Part of the problem is that there are only so many directions you can go with a new Terminator.  They had the basic robot.  They had the liquid robot.  It’s hard to think of how you could one up that.  There is also a sense of fatigue.  While this movie continues from Terminator 2, there are a few other movies and a TV series.  It’s hard to think of the movie without bringing at least some of that into it.

I wouldn’t say that I was disappointed.  It’s more that the movie didn’t quite live up to what I was expecting.  It’s not a bad movie.  It’s more that there was a mismatch.  It is an enjoyable movie.  I’m just curious as to where the franchise will go from here.

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Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town (2017)

I came in to this movie expecting a stinker.  I normally hate movies involving a downward spiral and that’s fully want I expected this to be.  Fortunately, if there was a downward spiral, it happened before the start of the main plot.  It starts with a woman talking to a girl, presumably her younger self, in a monochrome red scene.  I found myself asking what I had gotten myself into.  I considered walking out, but I decided to stay.  I had already purchased the ticket, after all.

After this scene, we meet Izzy.  She wakes up next to a guy.  Her best option would seem to be the walk of shame until she sees a postcard and realizes that there may be more to this guy.  She wakes him up to find out that he doesn’t have any memory of the night before, either.  He winds up seeming like a decent guy.  This winds up being a pretty good parallel for the movie.

After this scene, Izzy finds out that an ex-boyfriend is not only getting married, but he’s getting married to a former friend of hers.  Her sole mission over the next five-and-a-half hours is to get to the engagement party, which happens to be on the other side of Los Angeles.

It would seem easy enough for most of us.  The only problem is that her car is still being fixed.  She’s also $35 overdrawn and 48 hours from being evicted from her friend’s couch.  Thus, she has to find some friend or acquaintance that could help her.  She’ll even accept help from a total stranger.  (Apparently, taking the bus is beneath her.)

Izzy is not a particularly sympathetic character.  I get the whole wanting her boyfriend back, but it’s hard to imagine that crashing an engagement party would work.  I mean, he asked someone else to marry her.  That someone ended up being a former friend of Izzy’s and neither of them thought to involve Izzy.  That should tell her something.

For most of the movie, she wears the uniform for a catering job she lost because she got into a physical fight…with her boss.  She was in a band with her sister, but the sister moved on and seems to have a respectable life.  Someone even tells her that she could have had a solo career; she’s that good.  It’s just that she didn’t seem to get over her sister leaving.  Izzy is the only one that seems to have not moved on.

It’s very easy to think that Izzy got what she deserved.  She was given a good job, which she should have held on to.  She probably could have found someone new and gotten on with her life.  (Actually, that guy from the start of the movie would have been a pretty good candidate.)  The big question is what she hopes to accomplish once she gets across town.

Despite any misgivings about the movie, it ended up being halfway decent.  Many of the scenes were at least interesting.  Izzy does meet a few helpful people.  She also learns a thing or two about those she already knows, including one she calls Dick.  (I’m assuming it’s short for Richard, although I‘m not certain.)

I still feel like the movie could have done more.  Many of the people that Izzy meets are one-off characters.  They get three or four minutes of screen time before the adventure continues.  I suppose that’s the nature of having to keep moving.  You don’t get to stick around long enough to get to know people.

I am glad I stuck through it.  I find myself wondering about the ending.  Don’t worry.  I’m not going to give it away.  Part of the fun of this movie is wondering exactly what happened.  I do have a theory.  Either way, I think Izzy got exactly what she wanted, even if it’s not necessarily what she deserved.

IMDb page