The sixth movie in the Terminator franchise but chronologically the third, Dark Fate has a steep hill to climb. The last three movies ranged from alright to oof, what happened? I don’t think anyone remembers Rise of the Machines and while Genisys has its faults, it’s not bad. There’s no need to mention Salvation. That’s not a good batting average when the first two Terminator films are classics. Dark Fate is the third crack at reviving this 35 year old franchise.

So, how do you do it a third time? You ignore everything that was released in the last 17 years. It’s gotten too complex and sloppy. None of the last three movies happened, this is a direct sequel to T2: Judgement Day. And that movie is awesome. So, how do you make a good Terminator sequel? Keep everything that people liked about the first two movies and mix them together to add to the formula. This recipe worked on me, Dark Fate is an exciting ride.

Dark Fate is about humanity’s hubris. No matter what, we will create Artificial Intelligence that becomes self-aware and takes over to wipe us out. The other inevitability is mankind will always fight back. In T2, Sara and John Connor successfully stopped Judgement Day from occurring in August of 1997. But terminators are still sent back in time to kill John, and one ends up succeeding, leaving Sara alone in her fight until the present day. A new model of terminator–the REV-9–is sent to today after new target, Dani Ramos. The human rebellion from the future sends an augmented human soldier named Grace to defend Dani from the new threat. Grace finds Dani first and the two link up with Sara Connor to continue the fight against the machines across the decades.

Linda Hamilton rules. It’s awesome to see her play Sara again and this story fills in what has happened to her since the end of T2. The way they get her and a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Carl”!) to work together again is creative and brings back that uneasy partnership from T2. Grace as the new protector is a great addition as she’s not a cyborg, but a human that’s been heavily augmented to be able to stand up to a terminator. This removes the robot “learning” about being human from T2–which doesn’t need to be rehashed–and adds a compassionate, engaging, and relatable character right away. Plus, I love Mackenzie Davis from the show Halt and Catch Fire. She is a terrific badass heroine.

The REV-9 (“Gabriel” in human form played by Gabriel Luna) is a hybrid of the T-800 and the T-1000 terminator technology. A endoskeleton core with a liquid/nano skin that can separate and function away from the endoskeleton. This movie literally mixes the threats of the first two movies together to make a new, yet familiar, lethal threat.

Dani (Natalia Reyes) takes the role of John Connor. An innocent person thrust into the madness of being hunted for being the apparent savior of the human race. Reyes plays the part of the average person. Her struggle to come to grips with being hunted by a robot, and protected by two robots; the fear of being attacked all the time and forced to run at every moment is a visceral one. While she is the “replacement” of John, she handles it differently. She’s more confident and quicker to take part in controlling her fate.

For anyone that seen Terminator and T2, you can see the structure of both movies in what I’ve described. Characters are similar but expanded. The stakes are the same but the situation has been altered to make this third round happen. A lot of the intrigue in the story comes from finding out what Sara and John ended up accomplishing and what Sara has been doing since.

Placed between the lore and plot are awesome action scenes. There are some phenomenal special effects in this movie. And there is a lot of variety. A chase movie through and through, the settings are always changed to offer different battle scenarios and strategies to keep things interesting against a villian that is so hard to stop. While some backgrounds and other large CG elements (the airplane sequence comes to mind) can give you that weird CG plastic look that gives things away, much of it is incredible. Close up shots look believable, the effects of the REV- 9 are brilliant and make this new terminator look fierce and futuristic. The combination of the classic physical endoskeleton (now matte black!) and the liquid body opens the doors to wild fight scenes. There is a realistic sense of weight, power, impact, and scale when Grace, the REV-9 and Carl fight. Half the time they are partially or all CG, but it’s hard to tell.

Having a cast of five with different physical capabilities also adds variety and higher stakes. From the bottom, two are human, so they are very squishy. Dani has no self-defense training, so she has to be extra careful. Sara is a master marksman, with a gun and some range she’s dangerous. She can’t let a machine get close, she has no physical power. Grace is incredibly strong, a monster fighter, and can take a lot of damage. But she has limits that are way below a terminator. The REV-9 and T-800 “Carl” are juggernauts.

The physics are really well done which is a major accomplishment. When CG objects move around fast, go airborne, collide with things, it’s often easy to tell when the CG elements are swapped in. A film turns into a video game. That ruins the illusion and that doesn’t happen much in Dark Fate. Sure, the REV-9 does impossible things with its liquid half and gets thrown around with tremendous force, but it looks like it’s moving as it should. The digital face replacement for placing actor’s faces over stuntmen and women is cutting edge. I was constantly impressed by the action here, it totally carries the torch from Terminator 2 (and to be honest, the action in this entire franchise has always been great).

I liked everything about Dark Fate. The cast is fantastic, I like every character. Great dialog, believable reactions. Each new and remixed element is smartly placed and utilized. If the last three movies didn’t exist, I think this movie would have been way more anticipated and done much better in theatres. Like the X-Men franchise, too many felt burned by too many sub-par entries so they stayed away.

Speaking of X-Men, this is what Dark Phoenix wanted to be. A resurrection and quality culmination of characters that people love. Everything that Phoenix did wrong, Dark Fate did right. This also brings me to another movie I recently watched, Toy Story 4.

That movie feels like a definitive end for the franchise and Dark Fate does too. Those characters have told their story and at the very least, there is nothing more for Arnold to do with Terminator. He’s one of the best parts of this movie and that makes it a complete story for him. While they have room to use Linda Hamilton in a possible sequel (she was not in the last three so Sara hasn’t been overused) his time is done. No more CG Arnold T-800 reconstructions. In order to move the franchise forward, drastic things need to be done to do so. Remixing won’t work again and ultimately it’s probably for the best that Dark Fate is how this franchise goes out with a bang.