A tired 'Terminator' sequel and an Eddie Murphy resurgence
James Cameron made two great “Terminator” movies. Then some other folks made a bunch of forgettable sequels.
The newest installment (the sixth overall), “Terminator: Dark Fate,” features a script co-written by Cameron and directed by “Deadpool” filmmaker Tim Miller. It disregards those other sequels and exists as the only “Cameron-approved follow-up” to 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgement Day.”
It still isn’t very good.
Though it gets some mileage out of the return of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, “Dark Fate” continues a long trend of favoring noisy action over a compelling story. Another time-travelling robot super-killer arrives to kill a future savior, and Sarah Connor (eventually alongside series anchor Arnold Schwartzenegger) must rage against the machines. The robot attacks, the heroes run, rinse, repeat.
After a hasty and frustrating prologue that resets the Sarah Connor character arc following “Judgement Day,” the new movie focuses on Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), a Mexico City factory worker targeted by an ultra-advanced Terminator (Gabriel Luna, no comparison to Arnold’s charismatic turn). Soon, a genetically enhanced super-soldier from the future, Grace (Mackenzie Davis), arrives to protect Dani, but this new Terminator guy requires an old-school touch. Enter Hamilton’s no-nonsense crusader.
Much of the movie focuses on Dani, Grace and Sarah and their journey across the U.S.-Mexico border as the Terminator pursues them, and unfortunately, the new characters simply lack the charisma of Hamilton, who is trying at every turn to inject some personality into the repetitive hide-and-chase sequences. The story finally takes the franchise away from apocalyptic Skynet prophecies, but the new content sounds an awful lot like what we’ve heard before in previous movies.
“Dark Fate” builds to a belated Schwartzenegger appearance, and Arnold is reliably terrific as an aging Terminator lost in time. He’s a killing machine with a newfound conscience, although Sarah Connor doesn’t have much patience for the robot’s apparent morality. The Hamilton-Schwartzenegger scenes, limited as they are, do make the back-half of “Dark Fate” a bit more entertaining.
The overall product, however, still plays like an empty shell of those good “Terminator” films. If James Cameron really wants anybody to care about this franchise again, he may need to put down his “Avatar” toys and direct one himself.
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After a long stretch of theatrical appearances in high-concept comedies, Eddie Murphy took a break from movies, probably because he knew none of us could tolerate another “Shrek” sequel. Nevertheless, it’s been awhile since Murphy proved his comedic chops, which makes his triumphant return to the screen in the Netflix biopic, “Dolemite is My Name” that much more satisfying.
Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, a singer and comedian who developed a foul-mouthed, pimp-like character named Dolemite in the 1970s based on profane old stories told by the neighborhood’s homeless population. His lyrical performance style would eventually lead many in the hip-hop community to consider Moore “The Godfather of Rap.”
The movie, directed by Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow”) and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (“Ed Wood,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt”), is an energetic and entertaining peek at the development of Moore’s stand-up routine, as well as the production of the cheesy blaxploitation film “Dolemite,” complete with re-enactments of some of the film’s notable sequences (you can watch the original Dolemite and several other Moore films on the rival Amazon Prime streaming service).
In its best stretches, “Dolemite is My Name” plays like a real-life version of the underrated Murphy feature “Bowfinger.” The cast is also stacked, with Craig Robinson and Keegan-Michael Key in solid roles, and an especially inspired appearance by Wesley Snipes as the prima-donna director on “Dolemite.”
The movie pops because of Murphy, so full of life recreating Moore’s filthy rhymes. It’s one of the year’s most entertaining performances.
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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com. He is the co-host of Old Millennials Remember Movies, available at OldMillennialsRemember.com and wherever you find podcasts.