I like it, though ultimately I felt sad.

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 2003)

Some major spoilers in this comment. I left Terminator 3 feeling depressed, but that's a good thing. The story affected me just like the first one did.
I was sad when Sarah Connor, pregnant, drove off into the desert with storm clouds building. I was also sad with the closing moments in this one, nuke missiles in pretty arcs coming down on the earth. It reminded me of the problems I had with the second movie. I didn't like Edward Furlong. His pleas to keep the Terminator alive in the end didn't sound convincing, like some boy whining. I like Nick Stahl better. But I do agree with others' opinion that the movie misses a strong character like Sarah or Kyle. It's a downer ending. After spending $170 million I think it's brave of them to keep it that way. On the other hand, it also opens the possibility of a T4, so maybe it's not brave but rather cunning of them. Mostow is pretty good. When John drops the beer bottle and that starts a segue to the future, when John rides the motorcycle and we barely see his face, or when they arrive at Crystal Peak and everything seems so dated, so "Dr. Strangelove" or even "Colossus, the Forbin Project" and finally, when I heard those last few lines, "it was software, there was no core". The movie won me over. I like this, maybe even better than the second one.