Another ‘Terminator’ sequel? Hasta la vista, baby.

The Terminator is almost indestructible, but his franchise is flawed. “Rise of the Machines” (2003) brought the saga to a calamitous and despairing but logical conclusion. Yet the sequels, which revealed little interest in the original story, kept coming.

“Terminator: Dark Fate,” another attempt at righting the ship, is a failure, too, but for a different reason. It’s noisy, loaded with eye-popping visual effects and almost totally lacking a coherent plot. At times, it’s impossible to follow. And don’t even try to understand the inconsistencies of alternate timelines and awkwardly inserted flashbacks and flash-forwards.

The first “Terminator” (1984) was a lean, mean machine that conveyed a sense of apocalypse with only three main characters. This movie tries to get by with long, elaborate, violent action scenes. “Dark Fate,” directed by Tim Miller (“Deadpool”), is a slickly produced, over-the-top rehash of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” Amazingly, it has even less credibility than its model.

The story treads ponderously over familiar ground. A Rev-9 Terminator (Gabriel Luna) has been sent from a future where intelligent machines have virtually exterminated the human race to pursue and kill a young woman named Dani (Natalia Reyes), whose existence threatens their domination. Another figure arriving from the future is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a bionically enhanced super-soldier, who is assigned to protect Dani and stop the termination from taking place at all costs. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as the T-800 and so is Linda Hamilton as Sarah Conner.

Self-references fly thick and fast, but they don’t support the movie’s plot, which, despite all the technical virtuosity, is formulaic and repetitive. Two big action sequences are set in industrial complexes. The Rev-9, which can separate itself into two beings, is shredded or blown to pieces countless times and then almost immediately reconstitutes itself in pools of black, oily slime. The Rev-9’s invincibility limits the movie’s dramatic involvement.

“Dark Fate” struggles to find a tone that balances its grim vision of the future with the ironic comic relief found in the catchphrases of the original “Terminator.” When Schwarzenegger appears, the movie jarringly discovers the sense of humor missing from the first hour. With five writers credited with the story and script, you’d think they could come up with satisfactory explanations for how the cyborg Schwarzenegger has a gray beard and a woman companion and a son, but they steer away from logic.

“Dark Fate” reveals little that is new. The fight choreography is fairly inventive and Davis brings passion and physicality to her role. But the movie frequently slips into a CGI slumber without sense or precision. And the overlaid story structure is scattershot.

The script’s one imaginative touch is having Dani employed at a factory where the human workers are being replaced by automation. The movie’s attempt to comment on immigration is unconvincing. In the end, the tension between the three women is sustained throughout and it comes off as beautifully genuine. If “Dark Fate” is the end of the line for this franchise, it closes on a note of authenticity.