I have been eyeing to see this movie for a while, especially since I saw the trailer few times earlier which made me feel excited. However, as it was released on a date where I could not drive to my favorite Dolby Atmos theater freely, I opted to see this on its 2nd day last night. We were able to catch the 5.50 PM show even though it was quite tight after office hour. Well enough of that and let's just get into the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Set in the current year, a new kind of Terminator called Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna - Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D TV series etc) was sent from the future to terminate a seemingly normal young woman named Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes - Cumbia Ninja TV series etc). At the same time, a female enhanced human called Grace (Mackenzie Davis - Tully, Halt and Catch Fire TV series etc) was also sent from the future to protect Dani.
Things looked really bleak for Grace and Dani as Rev-9 was too sophisticated and had immense power, until they got the unexpected help from Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton - Dante's Peak, Beauty and the Beast TV series etc) and later on a "retired" T-800 model Terminator who now referred to himself as Carl (Arnold Schwarzenegger - Commando, True Lies etc). They all reluctantly joined forces despite the animosity between Sarah and Carl to try and stop Rev-9 before it manage to kill Dani and change the future.
So what would happen to this group? Find them all in this truly amazing sci-fi action movie.
End of Brief Story Line
Wow! That was one awesome action movie. It has all the great elements from the first two Terminator movies which were perfectly combined with the fresh new people and an upgraded unkillable terminator from the future. What really made me love this movie was the amazing special effects which brought back so much memory of 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Back then I saw the movie with some friends and we were all so captivated by it and in awe of the scarily lifelike liquid based terminator which made Arnold's model obsolete at that time. And this one had similar kind of formula that I personally thought was a real success.
This movie had few of the craziest jaw dropping intense kind of actions I had ever seen. My wife and I were strapped to our seats during that real suspenseful almost nonstop chasing sequence in the early part. There were also few brief action sequence but it was truly satisfying for me as the climax was spectacular with some surprises along the way. It was one of the most memorable experience I had while watching a movie in a cinema, not only because of its awesomeness but also due to the nostalgic feeling I had.
For a movie which had a duration of 128 minutes, I did not feel it to be too long. There were some brief moments which felt like it was trying to bring the emotional feel, especially during the scenes where the main female leads were bonding, but I personally felt the bonding was more interesting when Carl was in the picture. To my surprise, he brought some brief humorous sense for us where we could chuckle a bit because of him. I also waited for the very long closing credits where it showed the many people involved in creating the wonderful special effects but it did not have any mid or post end credit scenes. Btw, this movie was categorized for 13+ in Indonesia which I think was OK, as long as they are comfortable with quite numerous foul language used.
Aside from the great special effects, I thought this movie was also entertaining because of the performances of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton who reprise their original roles and joined together after 28 years. Mackenzie Davis and Gabriel Luna were both perfect in portraying their roles and showing off their capability in action. Oh before I forgot, this movie did not consider
Terminator 3-5 and considered itself as direct sequel of
Judgment Day. Personally this made more sense to me although I could not say for other people. This type of treatment was similar to that 2018
Halloween which was a direct sequel to the 1978 movie and disregard all the films in between. This movie was directed by Tim Miller (
Deadpool) with one of the producer James Cameron (
Titanic, Avatar etc) himself who created the first
Terminator films. So it should not come as a surprise that this movie had that strong original Terminator sense.
Overall this was a really fantastic action movie to my opinion as it had really great intense action sequence with epic climax scenes. It had some really wonderful special effects combined with cool Dolby Atmos sound effects plus a not too complex story to absorb, a bit of humor and brief emotional moment (which brought some tears to my wife) making this a truly entertaining movie for me and her. We were really satisfied after seeing this film and I personally would not mind watching it again just to experience all the actions. So if you are fans of Terminator series (especially the first and second movie), then this one would definitely satisfy you. Just do not overthink about the confusing timeline and ignore the other Terminator movies and you should be fine.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Special note (SPOILER WARNING!) Only continue to read if you have seen the movie:
