‘Terminator Zero’ Review: Netflix’s Franchise Reboot Is Still Recycling the Same Faulty Parts

In our ongoing age of intellectual property , when any idea is a good idea so long as it’s pegged to an old idea people might still like, it’s honestly remarkable that a once-successful franchise like “The Terminator” simply can’t get itself back into gear. Following the success of 1984’s original film and the mega-success of 1991’s “T2,” the 2000s have not been kind to the red-eyed killing machine, no matter how it tries to come back. Sure, “Terminator 3” was a respectable effort, but the B-movie action flick is a far cry from its groundbreaking predecessors. Then came 2009’s “Terminator Salvation,” which proved to be anything but a savior. McG’s dark-and-gritty vision of the future at least had the courage to leave Judgment Day and Arnold Schwarzenegger behind ( sort of ), but its muddled look and middling box office didn’t produce too many broken hearts over the abandoned sequels . Bringing back the T-800 in the flesh didn’t do “Terminator Genisys” and “Terminator: Dark Fate” any favors, even when the latter doubled down on nostalgia by reintroducing Linda Hamilton .

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Each of these films played it fast and loose with series’ canon, using the flexibility provided by its time travel narrative to drop and pick up plots lines as they saw fit. Sometimes, Judgment Day was inevitable. Sometimes, it already happened. Sometimes , pivotal moments from past films that made for cherished memories among viewers were adjusted, erased, or otherwise undermined in such a way it’s no wonder everyone checked out on “Terminator.” How can you invest in something that refuses to invest in itself?

“Terminator Zero” doesn’t offer salvation, nor is it another “Salvation,” but it does admirably try to bundle up all the past “Terminators,” acknowledge their existence, and move forward. Starring a brand new set of characters, the Netflix anime series from showrunner and writer Mattson Tomlin isn’t dependent on fans remembering everything that came before, so much as it subtly deploys easter eggs for those of us who’ve been in the trenches, while constructing a narrative that can support itself and all those disparate threads about Skynet, Terminators, and Judgment Day. As a new “Terminator” entry , it’s fairly clever. As a new action-anime series, it’s disappointingly rote.

Malcolm Lee (voiced in English by André Holland ) is your typical workaholic dad. His three kids just want to hang out and even though he claims they’re the most important thing in the world to him, Malcolm still leaves them at home with their nanny, Misaki (Sumalee Montano), while he heads into the office alone. To be fair, Malcolm has a lot on his plate. His wife is dead. At night, he’s haunted by nightmares of a nuclear attack that kills his children (and the rest of the world). So each day, he locks himself in a giant empty room (not unlike The Sphere in Las Vegas) and talks to his A.I. creation about how to prevent an apocalypse he knows is coming. It’s 1997. Judgment Day is right around the corner. And only he can stop it.

Or so he thinks. In 2022, Judgment Day has already happened. Eiko (Sonoya Mizuno) is a resistance fighter who’s just eradicated a particularly pesky Terminator and, in the process, procured precious data by stabbing its glowing eyeball with an electronic needle. The extracted plans reveal Skynet is planning to travel back in time to ensure its dominance in the future (Eiko’s present), which means Eiko has to go back to stop them from doing… whatever they’re doing.

OK, obviously the Terminator is going after Malcolm, but why is a mystery “Terminator Zero” takes its time unraveling. For much of the eight-episode first season, Malcolm is isolated in his fancy sphere with his AI buddy, Kokoro, debating the value of humanity and its effect on the planet, while Eiko, Misaki, and the kids are going toe-to-metal with the Terminator (voiced sparingly by Timothy Olyphant). The construction of Malcolm’s office space helps keep his scenes from feeling too exposition heavy or unnaturally chatty. As the man and machine argue over what good, if any, mankind has done for their home planet, recordings of old wars and simulated visions of future bombings surround them. Director Masashi Kudo dives in and out of his characters’ video accompaniment to convey moments that resonate strongly with Malcolm or, conversely, fears he needs to keep at a distance.

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Meanwhile, the battles outside are far bloodier than the franchise has yet seen. Hands are crushed into purplish pulp. Arms are ripped apart. Skin is stripped so thoroughly the victims have no eyelids to protect them from the horrors they’re seeing. Cumulatively, however, the effect is surprisingly muted. Since the beginning, Terminators have been framed as unstoppable, horrific assassins, and knowing what their super-strength can do to flesh and bone has always been unnerving, to say the least. What we’ve seen in live-action versions may not compare to what we see in anime, but what we didn’t see, what we only imagined, was equally grotesque.

Similarly, the ideas floated in “Terminator Zero” fall well short of the franchise’s once-impressive imagination. The longer Malcolm’s back-and-forths with Kokoro go on, the harder they are to listen to, as each supposedly brilliant entity looks more and more like a bad-faith ambassador for their respective species. Malcolm is so blinded by misanthropy, it’s baffling why he wants to save mankind in the first place. (At one point, he’s asked to name one good thing — one — that humans have done, and he can’t come up with a single answer. I mean, come on. There are seven wonders of the world , my dude. And there’s also baseball! And that time we saved this puppy ! Vaccines! Ice cream! I can go on!) Kokoro, for its part, dumbly accepts Malcolm’s faulty reasoning, despite being imbued with all the world’s knowledge. (But given how stupid modern A.I. seems to be, I’ll give this 1997 version the benefit of the doubt.)

By the time Malcom’s story converges with Eiko’s, any emotional investment has crumbled, and you’re mainly just waiting for the pieces to come together. “Terminator Zero” does a decent job resetting the franchise so a sequel or second season could basically start from scratch. But in doing so, it practically admits the characters you’ve gotten to know across these eight half-hour episodes are expendable. They’re slight twists or straight-up placeholders for people you remember, and their story isn’t nearly strong enough to compare to those memories. It’s the same problem the franchise can’t seem to crack: Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, John Connor, the T-800 — these were great characters. Their missions were thrilling, their circumstances were distinct, and the style with which they were brought to life was extraordinary, but those first two films asked audiences to invest in the people (and the machine) as they went through the most significant moments of their lives. Those attachments were real, and they’re not easy to recreate, even if the whole time travel aspect means, technically , the next story can always start over.

“Terminator Zero” deserves some credit for not trying to start over. It’s not a John Connor story, and there’s no Arnold cameo lurking in the finale. But it’s still the shell of a Terminator, rather than the real thing.

Grade: C

“Terminator Zero” premieres Thursday, August 29 on Netflix. All eight episodes will be released at once.