'Terminator: Dark Fate'

When you see James Cameron’s name on the poster for “Terminator: Dark Fate,” don’t get your hopes up — the franchise’s creator is only a co-writer and producer here, director Tim Miller (“Deadpool”) doesn’t quite have the stuff to replace him, and we’re still getting those dumb “Avatar” sequels.

The first thing we see is Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton), in footage from “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” warning disbelieving shrinks of the pending apocalypse. It’s an apocalypse she prevented, in a timeline that never comes to pass, though there’s an unexpected tragedy that drives Sarah underground.

In the here-and-now, we see two figures from the future arrive in Mexico City. One, we learn quickly, is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an augmented human sent to protect a young woman, Danielle Ramos (Natalia Reyes). The other is what’s trying to kill Danielle: A Terminator, a new Rev-9 model (played by Gabriel Luna), who has the same liquid-metal capabilities as “Terminator 2’s” T-1000, and the same blandly unemotional expression as he slices through anything in his way.

Miller creates some solid action set pieces, with Davis’s Grace fighting fiercely against Luna’s Rev-9. The momentum shifts sharply when another player enters the game: Sarah Conner, and darn if it isn’t great to see Hamilton, weathered but still a bad-ass at 63, back after what seems forever. (In the process, Hamilton’s presence retcons away at least one sequel, if not everything since “T2.”)

If you’ve seen any publicity material, you also know that Arnold Schwarzenegger, the original Terminator, shows up along the line. Giving away that plot point is a spoiler, for sure — one that will cause eyes to roll from coast to coast.

And therein lies the problem with “Terminator: Dark Fate.” Sure, the action sequences are ridiculously entertaining, but they’re driving the story, rather than the other way around. The much-handled script — David S. Goyer & Justin Rhodes wrote the screenplay, with a rewrite by Billy Ray, and Goyer, Rhodes and Cameron are three of five sharing story credit — turns out to be a flimsy clothesline on which to hang the action.

But darn if everyone doesn’t look cool doing it. Hamilton and Schwarzenegger are fun to watch in their golden years, still fighting evil. Luna (who played Ghost Rider on a season of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) displays catlike smoothness as the robot killing machine. Reyes, a Colombian actor who shined in “Birds of Passage,” blossoms in hero mode. But the stealth MVP is Davis (“Halt and Catch Fire”), whose lean frame and haunting eyes make her the most effective Terminator hunter since — well, since Hamilton.

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‘Terminator: Dark Fate’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, Nov. 1, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for violence throughout, language and brief nudity. Running time: 128 minutes.