Great watch, would watch again, and do recommend.
First, time travel is the worst, but it's what allows the premise.
I don't like divergent timelines, but it allows for some interesting scenarios, so when an android that never would have been created kills someone that would had stopped it from existing had it not been erased from existence, I'm a little interested.
The other big difference, and I'm not really opposed, is that they turned this into a women's empowerment movie when it could have just been bad ass women on screen and it wouldn't have slapped the audience so hard. Plus there is a weird parallel there where they still need a "big strong man" to save them, but it's a machines, so the only man a woman really needs is a "machine"? I don't know, I really liked the movie, and I sure wouldn't change the cast, just maybe point it in a more linear direction than the "protect the womb" mislead they threw in to throw shade at the original.
Linda Hamilton is just as bad ass as ever, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is really keeping up too. I love Mackenzie Davis in this: she plays a no-nonsense, dedicated soldier so well.
Unfortunately Natalia Reyes just doesn't sell the character she's supposed to be to me, and Gabriel Luna doesn't quite pop for some reason. Granted the T-1000 has some surprise and charm to it that the REV-9 doesn't quite have just in the nature of it.
I will say the REV-9 does bring a very specific flavor to the action, being 1, 1.5, or even 2 separate characters really has a lot of potential to it, and I do want to see a different story that does intelligence work with a similar concept, but the action this gives is pretty sweet.
And that's where it is special, mostly in the nano-bot effects. Most of the rest of the action is pretty standard, but good, and Mackenzie Davis does such a great job playing up being super powered against such a crazy machine. I do how she joins the Marvel Universe.
Fans of the Terminator franchise, androids, action should like this, though I'll admit it's not a return for formula, but it better than some of the other movies in the franchise.