Made in 2003 with only Arnold Schwarzenegger returning to reprise the role that made him into a megastar. No one else returns from the previous films (with the exception of Earl Boen who has a cameo as Dr. Peter Silberman). This time James Cameron is also not the one sitting in the director’s chair.
New John Connor and New Terminator
John Connor (Nick Stahl) has been living off the grid since Sarah died of cancer. He is not sure if the actions taken by him, Sarah, and the Terminator from the second film have stopped Judgement Day and prevented the rise of the machines. John has lived past August 29th 1997 (the date of Judgement Day) but he is still not taking any chances.
Unable to locate John, Skynet sends a new terminator, the T-X (Kristanna Loken) back through time to kill those men and women who would become his lieutenants. The T-X has traits of both the original Terminator and the T-1000. Once again the resistance sends a Terminator (Schwarzenegger) to protect John from the T-X and prepare him for the coming Judgement Day which his actions have only postponed.
This time around John is not the only one under threat, his future wife Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) is also on the T-X’s hit list.
Beginning of the End...of the Franchise
The first two Terminator films were two of the best science fiction action films made, ever.
The sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day surpassed its predecessor and give the world a visual treat that has not been outdone since the day it way released. They were two films, the original and the sequel, in which maybe, just maybe the human race had been saved from destruction. In Terminator 3 the audience learns that was not the case. Worse still, like Blade: Trinity, this film’s only purpose seems to be to poke fun at the franchise in general. In Rise of the Machines Arnie is returning to the franchise that made him into a superstar but now that he is getting on a bit, the filmmakers have felt the need to have that fact included in the proceedings. For example, he claims to now be an ‘obsolete’ design which is clearly a reference to his own aging and uses his own once great line in reference to someone else “She’ll be Back”
Acting wise...who really cares, this film has managed to take something, no, two somethings, that were great, some might say epic and ruin them. In the space of a couple of hours fans will be weeping because filmmakers have managed to obliterate the two incredible films that James Cameron, Arnie, and Linda Hamilton created in 1984 and 1991.
Nick Stahl is fine as John Connor, and Claire Danes manages to look suitably surprised at the revelations of the Terminator, however, they essentially just run around trying to keep away from the T-X. Kristanna Loken spends most of the film wandering around killing various people, and having a very serious expression on her face. In this film, the special effects are the stars of the show, the T-X has onboard weapons and can alter her appearance. It has to be said that the special effects are impressive but are being relied on far too heavily to carry the proceedings.
The main problem with Terminator 3 is that it is not trying to take itself seriously, and has lost the gritty realism of the previous two. The audience may be left to wonder why Skynet seems to think that sending terminator after terminator back through time is the only way to destroy their enemy. If Skynet is so clever then why does it not think of something else. The first film: send a terminator back through time to kill Sarah Connor – it fails. Second film: send a more advanced terminator back through time to kill John Connor when he is still a child – that one fails too. Third film: Skynet thinks of something else? No, send yet another more advanced terminator to try and kill some other people and John if he’s about.
Why don’t the machines send two terminators, or three, or an army? The audience may have asked themselves these questions during the first two films, only they didn’t because the first two films were so good they didn’t want to pick holes in them. Now, during Terminator 3 all the audience will want to do is pick holes, and will be left to wonder how a computer system advanced enough to build multiple time-travel machines (during Terminator Reese said the human resistance destroyed the facility housing the time displacement equipment, and as the machines sent another terminator back in Terminator 2 then logically they must have built another time machine) is not advanced enough to think up a new tactic.
Perhaps it was nostalgia that made Arnie want to do this film, Terminator made him a megastar so maybe it was a full circle kind of thing. The first film made him a star so he will be there until the bitter end of the franchise, which should have been here, but sadly it wasn’t.
2/5
Very poor film that will cause the audience to chuckle but Terminator films are not supposed to do that.
Christopher Sharman - In 2009 I self-published my first novel entitled The Darkness Saga: The Light (currently available at amazon.co.uk) which has been ...
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