'Dark Fate is just another bad Terminator movie': New sequel starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton receives mixed reviews

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The new Terminator movie which sees the long-awaited reunion of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton has received mixed reviews from film critics.

Terminator Dark Fate, which opens in theaters on November 1, stars Schwarzenegger alongside Hamilton, who played protagonist Sarah Connor in the first two films.       

In Dark Fate, Dani Ramos played by Natalia Reyes, is living in Mexico City with her brother and father when a highly advanced and deadly new Terminator - a Rev-9 - travels back through time to kill her.

Her survival depends on her joining forces with Sarah Connor and another warrior, in addition to Schwarzenegger's character.

The new Terminator movie which sees the long-awaited reunion of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton has received mixed reviews from film critics

Dark Fate, directed by Tim Miller, is billed as a direct sequel to 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day and is the first time in 28 years that Schwarzenegger and Hamilton appear together

The new movie, directed by Tim Miller, is billed as a direct sequel to 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day and is the first time in 28 years that Schwarzenegger and Hamilton appear together. 

However the movie has received good and bad reviews, with one saying Schwarzenegger 'adds a dash of life and much needed comedy when he makes his late-movie entrance.'

Rotten Tomatoes writes that Dark Fate represents a significant upgrade over its immediate predecessors, 'even if it lacks the thrilling firepower of the franchise's best installments.' It gives the movie a rating of 5.91 out of ten. 

In an editorial it writes of the movie: 'For some, the effort is pulled off perfectly, while others see the new installment as a nostalgic rehash that panders to fans.'

Schwarzenegger's performance is praised overall.

'He's invaluable in the action scenes, which are some of Dark Fate’s most crowd-pleasing moments,' Huw Fullerton of the Radio Times writes.

In its review, The Los Angeles Times writes: 'Dark Fate is a good-enough hybrid of fiery nonsense, fan gratification and pop-savvy series regeneration that wisely erases, or at least neutralizes, a lot of forgettable recent history. 

'The last three sequels — Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator: Salvation (2009) and Terminator: Genisys (2015) — have effectively been written out of existence, relegated to the ash heap of alternate-timeline history.'

An image released by Paramount Pictures shows Mackenzie Davis, (left), and Linda Hamilton, (right),  in Terminator: Dark Fate which  is released on November 1 

Rotten Tomatoes writes that Dark Fate represents a significant upgrade over its immediate predecessors, 'even if it lacks the thrilling firepower of the franchise's best installments.' It gives the movie a rating of 5.91 out of ten

The movie's villain, a new Terminator - a Rev-9, played by Gabriel Luna receives acclaim for playing the role with a 'chilling blankness' adding: 'A handsome shield for a skeletoid body whose obsidian-colored guts keep splitting apart and oozing back together, like salt-water taffy from hell.'

The LA Times reads: 'It's fun to watch Schwarzenegger play backup to three formidable women — each one hailing from a different Terminator time frame, and one of them a Latina who represents the gravest possible threat to our fascist future.'

Meanwhile the Associated Press gives the movie a two out of four star rating and claims Dark Fate is just another bad Terminator movie in a string of bad Terminator movies.

Reviewer Lindsay Bahr is critical of Hamilton's performance. Bahr writes: 'The Terminator's original damsel-turned-warrior Sarah Connor joins their ranks too and it gives me no pleasure to report that it's not an enjoyable comeback. 

'Poor Hamilton - who looks as fierce as ever and was rightfully excited to get a chance to bring Sarah Connor back not as an ingenue but a woman in her 60s who has lived a life - has been reduced to a lousy one-note caricature imagined by a group of men.'

One review is cutting of Linda Hamilton's performance, saying: 'The Terminator's original damsel-turned-warrior Sarah Connor joins their ranks too and it gives me no pleasure to report that it's not an enjoyable comeback'

An image shows Natalia Reyes, (right), and Mackenzie Davis, (left), in Terminator: Dark Fate 

Bahr says the action movie is so 'jumpy and confusing that it's hard to even track on what is happening. 

Bahr credits one inspired scene which shows the Hoover Dam and the high-octane freeway chase that essentially opens the film. 

She adds: 'Still, the money and talent involved should have produced something significantly better. And of course the end sets us up for more potential Terminator films.'

Owen Glieberman of Variety was more upbeat about the movie, saying: 'It’s a film that returns, in good and gratifying ways, to the smartly packaged low-down genre-thriller classicism that gave the original its kick.'

He was more positive about Hamilton's performance in the movie, saying: 'Hamilton, playing this burnt-out husk of a savior, is triumphantly funny and alive… She’s like Susan Sontag as a badass.'

Jordan Farley of Total Film claims the fourth attempt at crafting a worthy sequel to James Cameron’s peerless sci-fi double bill 'only just gets passing marks.'  

He writes: 'Dark Fate gets more right than it gets wrong (just about, anyway), and there’s an undeniable thrill in seeing Hamilton and Schwarzenegger reunited onscreen for the first time in almost three decades.' 

Most reviewers are of the opinion that Dark Fate is the best sequel in the franchise since 1991's Judgement Day.

Helen O'Hara of Empire writes: 'Dark Fate feels like a real Terminator movie at last from the breakneck, deeply terrifying chase that opens it to its moving finale.  

'For the first time in a long time, we can look to the future of Terminator with hope.'