Terminator: Dark Fate Review - 5 Ups & 5 Downs

4. The Derivative, CGI-Heavy Action Sequences

Despite Tim Miller proving himself a solid action director on the first Deadpool, his penchant for cartoonish action is completely wasted on a Terminator movie, and the result is a wealth of weightless, unconvincing, CGI-slathered robot-smashing mayhem that doesn't raise the pulse a single beat.

What do the two best Terminator films have in common? They focused on the human, practical thrill of the chase, and even if T2 was a mega-budget effects extravaganza for its day, Cameron knew to root the action in tangible, real filmmaking elements.

Dark Fate's set pieces are overly reliant on blurry, silly-looking robotic acrobatics, as has basically been the case with every Terminator film since T2, but perhaps even more frustrating is how derivative they are of that film's action sequences.

Miller shamelessly "homages" several scenes from T2 with the same basic set-up and pay-off, and while he might think he's making cute nods to fans, it ultimately comes off as lazy as the film's very desire to rehash T2's core plot.

With its massive $200 million budget and talented director at the helm, Dark Fate could've revitalised the series' approach to kinetic action, but instead most of the mayhem just comes across as generic business-as-usual for the franchise.