Well! Arnie is back and Dendy has $10 tickets to their mostly-empty lounge in Newtown, so I headed to their 1:30pm screening on this day-after-opening. The girl at the counter suggested the front row was too close, but I'd say seat B3 was too far, and the people up the back probably should have watched it on their 8K screens at home. The US-style chairs have leg supports but don't recline. Apparently there's a menu but I didn't get asked before, after or during.
This movie was conceived in weariness: all of the tropes are stale. The draw was mainly that James Cameron just may have been able to inflate the script, but instead we merely got some fem-heavy politicking and too much senseless chatter. The politics are threadbare: we begin in Mexico City but of course Texas is where you go when you need security. Arnie has a Latina wife and Latino son, for unconvincing reasons, and these are rapidly and hygienically disposed of when the plot demands. Linda Hamilton gave me Hillary Clinton vibes, perhaps because her F-bombs were all that elevated this to MA15+ from whatever T2 was rated back in the day. I grant that Mackenzie Davis is a far better actress than Emilia Clarke but not even Meryl Streep could have made those dank dark airplane scenes work. There is nothing particularly clever or inventive at any point, and the ending is surprisingly lame. Arnie's old-man Terminator is milking-it poignant in a Hugh Jackman sorta way (again!), and it is absurd that he can take it to the latest and greatest. Natalia Reyes as the latest pivotal historical figure and Gabriel Luna do what they can.
IMDB had already panned this thing before its Australian release. I was surprised it doesn't seem to be on the big screens at e.g. The Ritz. A. O. Scott. Jake Wilson. Dana Stevens.