Review of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) by Fred V — 29 May 2012

The curse of sequels, here it is again. The movie suffers from many of the curse's illfated symptoms. When you look at the productions history, one things springs to mind. It was turned down by James Cameron, Ridley Scott and Ang Lee, oh my, two thumbs up for the script ? I dont think so and the movie shows. A mindless series of action scenes and vehicle chases. And despite having a tremendous budget, the cgi and effects in the movie look ridicilous and dated. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes the movie interesting as he reprises his classic role of the Terminator, unfortunately he does not have a supporting cast to balance him out. Stahl and Danes have no chemistry. Nick Stahl cannot pull off the gritty determination a leader of the resistance would have, he is a babyface, a hobbit. I am not sure why Claire Danes sigend up for this rubbish ? Needed a new car ? Probably. Now, the worst is the Terminator's enemy, while Robert Patrick created a menacing career performance (a career he destroyed when taking on the X-Files), but Krisinak Loken is a joke and she does not create a single moment of true villainous menace. The movie scores high on the geek meter, as it is quite aware of the franchise. Signature lines, clothes, camera takes, special effects, you get the picture, many "aha" moments for the Terminator fan, unfortunately the theme does not make an appereance before the end credits and believe me, nobody want to spend another minute with that movie, so the theme is pretty much wasted. Maybe the times have changed, and the critics are right, the times of cheesey 90ies flicks are over and our action heroes are grim and dark (See T4, or the Dark Knight). Yet, the premise of the movie should have been good enough, if not the best for any of the Terminator movies. Telling the story of how the war between humans and machines broke out in the first place sounds like the shit, not literally, but it was , literally. What else is there to say, I assume we have to watch it in order to complete the canon of all four, but the T3 movie buried the old franchise, good riddance. The first two are still great, but this one is terrible.

HX.