Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)

I've been a fan of the Terminator franchise since watching the first movie on VHS at my friend John's house. Since then, I've watched every movie as well as Sarah Connor Chronicles.

As a fan of the franchise, I'm not going to spend this blog post revisiting just how totally off the rails it's become except to say.... "it has". [The first 5 minutes of Half In the Bag details it well, if you care.] And it's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly where it went off the rails. Most people think it's T3, though I enjoyed that one (especially the end). And it made sense to try to make a movie in the future like Salvation (though that didn't work out).

Either way, the people who own the rights to Terminator really have had nowhere to take it for at least a decade. Dark Fate now makes the second attempt at a complete reboot in that timeframe. Their fatal mistake in the last reboot was putting the franchise in the hands of Jai Courtney. ("Stop trying to make Jai Courtney happen... it's not going to happen!")

This time though, they didn't try any time travel trickery. They simply disregarded everything Terminator that you may have paid good money for and spent precious waking hours watching since 1991. They said "screw you, loyal fans who have watched all of these other things we made! We're doing it right this time." Fair enough.

So how was the movie?

Let's get to the meat: the result was pretty entertaining... for a while. It features a truck chase, which takes a page from (*checks notes*) Terminator 1, Terminator 2, Terminator 3.... but they totally did it differently because the truck chase was at the beginning of the movie. The chase was entertaining! And Grace, the "augmented human" played by Mackenzie Davis, was pretty badass in that scene.

No spoilers in this section but you know Linda Hamilton and Arnold are in this by now, right? That's because they're featured on every poster, and a ridiculous amount of money was spent marketing this movie. If you didn't know, there's a picture nearby of aforementioned marketing.

Where the movie started losing it was the second act, and it really started to suck in the third act. The second act is almost 100% nostalgia and "Fun & Games" around Arnold's terminator character, as well as Sarah's story. I mean, as a die hard fan of the first two Terminator movies, I enjoyed it. It had some interesting and (in the case of Arnold's character) funny things about it.

But the third act was just filled with impossible, stupid action and VFX insanity. There was no story and I was ready for it to end for the last 20-30 minutes.

I would generally recommend this movie to fans of the franchise but no one beyond that. See below for more thoughts on that.

JSS Rating: It's a Good, Bad Movie. The filmmakers know they weren't making Citizen Kane, but it was enjoyable nevertheless.

What was the point?

--- Spoilers --- 

The thing I'm left wondering about Dark Fate is... what were the producers trying to do with the movie? It makes no sense.

They brought back Sarah, Arnold, and John. Then killed John [even though Skynet was already doomed and the whole point of a Terminator changing the future was that if you killed someone, they won't be in the future, so if Skynet never existed, why was there a terminator to kill John? Fine, whatever. This movie does not have the rigor of Primer]. Then they introduce us to Dani, tell us that she's the new John, and Grace, the "augmented human" badass who Dani recruited.

It's some sort of Force Awakens handoff movie? Is that what they wanted to do? The old generation to the new generation. Except, at the end, they kill Han Solo Arnold... but they also kill Grace?! Leaving us with only Sarah and Dani. Sarah is now going to teach Dani to be a Prepper, but stops by a playground first, as Sarah is wont to do.

But, um, there's one catch to this: we're really only left with Dani to carry a future movie of the Terminator franchise. And who wants to watch another of these movies with Dani.... the person who barely does anything in this movie? What are they going to do for T7, start off with Dani in a mental institution? C'mon.

Except I'm not sure we have to worry about any of this sequel talk because Dark Fate did very poorly at the box office. The theater we saw it in had replaced the sign with Joker before we walked out... and we saw it on the first week!! Like Blade Runner 2049 (which was a far better movie and proper sequel), the built-in audience for this franchise is apparently small. Especially internationally, nobody cared about this movie. And the break-even for Dark Fate is almost half a bil.

So I really, really, reeeeaaally hope they end this franchise here now and forever. It's played out, there's nowhere to take it, and no one cares to see it anyway. At this point, I'm just happy no one has digitally altered T1 and T2 and I can still share those with my kids when they're old enough. 

Under The Silver Lake (2019)

Under the Silver Lake is the latest movie by It Follows (which is also excellent) writer/director David Robert Mitchell. It's a weird, meta, superficially entertaining, deliberately derivative work of a mad genius trying to pull together a message about Hollywood, culture and art. Everyone who enjoys movies or music should watch it.

I loved the movie, it's my favorite of 2019 and one of my favorites in years. The movie pretty much defines my movie-viewing wheelhouse.

So while I think it's really a shame it was dumped onto streaming without a lot of fanfare, it's best enjoyed on streaming. I found myself rewinding again and again, jumping around and trying to make sense of it. Though, it probably would have been fun to watch with a good audience.

I'm not going to go over the plot of the movie, you can read that in the many reviews that panned the movie. AO Scott is a really good reviewer, but he can't seem to look past the references to see what the movie's about.

So, I'm going to try to explain what the movie is about, but there are a few spoilers. But if you want to go in completely cold, then don't read the rest of this review yet. (And it goes without saying that you should never read reviews until after you watch a movie)



The premise gets set up in the very first shot:

Why is there a dog killer in Silver Lake? Why should we be afraid of him?

Well, a classic moviemaking truism is that you should never kill a dog in a movie unless you want the audience to hate you. Spielberg was one of the first mainstream directors to break the rule in Lost World, and it was so memorable at the time that I easily found this article about it 22 years later.

Mitchell is telling the audience up front that he's going to kill the dog, literally and figuratively, in this film. You're going to hate him for ruining not just this movie, but all movies, and all culture, after he's through.

As AO Scott points out, the film is full of references. Many, many, many are Hitchcockian. Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo are all there (and probably more I missed).  Hitchcock is arguably the most influential director of all time. All mystery movies -- maybe all movies at this point -- are influenced by Hitchcock. Mitchell goes so far as to show Hitchcock's actual grave in this movie. Mitchell isn't just paying homage here. He wants you to know he's ripping off Hitchcock so badly because it's meta.

Several times in the movie, Mitchell refers to Hollywood tropes and then puts those into the movie and right up in your face. Many have to do with sexualization in pop culture: the male gaze, blonde/brunette/redhead.

So what's the meaning of all this? The good news is the point of the movie is delivered to you, the viewer. The character looks into the camera to tell you exactly what the movie is about. The character is The Songwriter (also another trope), an old recluse who has created all of the world's most loved music for generations.

And this is, like, a real thing. Consider Max Martin. But The Songwriter has a bigger point though. He tells you -- yes, you -- "Your art, your writing, your culture, is the shell of other men's ambitions". The Songwriter is both talking to the audience and the director. Mitchell wants you to know his success is built upon the shoulders of Hitchcock, and the many other things he referenced in this movie.

The concept is not unlike this fantastic music video by Hot Chip. I'm always left wondering, are any of my ideas actually my ideas, or a fraud based on hidden figures like the Songwriter, which culture consumers have no idea actually exist? My reaction is always like this girl in the music video, when she sees the actual singer of the song:

Anyway, Mitchell made this movie with so many pop culture and ripped-off tropes to drive home this point. Mitchell also spends a lot of time in the movie dwelling on hidden clues. The Songwriter mentions this a few times ("the song was not for you"). And, of course, the main character follows his own hidden clue trail to the big reveal.

But in a final chef's-kiss of meta, random things happen in the movie, like someone announcing a code aloud, or a squirrel falling out of a tree dead. I'm left wondering if these clues are the final dog killed. Mitchell wants you to waste your time trying to find hidden meaning for everything in this movie, when actually, there is none.

So good luck with that. You've been warned... though I'm not sure I'll be able to obey my own warning.

JSS Rating: Good / Good. If you are a cultural robot like me, this movie should be both entertaining and have meaning for you.