A worthy sequel to a winding down franchise.

Rating: 7/10 (3 July 2003)

CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS I expected to go to this movie and be extremely disappointed with it. The original director/writer James Cameron was missing, Arnold was getting caught up by his age, and it's been over a decade since T2. Instead I was actually quite satisfied with Jonathan Mostows take on Terminator.
I thought that the character acting was quite well done. Nick Stahl wasn't exactly powerful with his performance as John Connor but this was a good thing because it seemed that the focus of the film was no longer on him anyways. Claire Danes while making a wonderful damsel in distress didn't really convince me that she was to be a key lieutenant of the future but I guess that's how Linda Hamilton's character was in the first film so it's all the more intriguing. Arnold's performance was of course perfect. He easily recaptured the Terminator persona and was even able to pull off some good humor with a straight face. Kristanna Loken's terminator did her job but wasn't really as intimidating as the original T-800 or the T-1000. Maybe because it was a woman this time I don't know. It's most likely the fact that I had the phrase "been there done that" echoing in my head since we all knew Arnold would win in the end.
The plot was probably the weakest category of this film. Unlike T2 there wasn't really any good sub-plot to keep the viewer intrigued between explosions. However luckily the key pressure points and a surprise twist ending kept things interesting. Some claim this is just a rip-off of movies like the Matrix because it involves computers taking over the world. Those hippie Matrix fan boys should not be listened to since this has been the key concept for the last 19 years of the franchise!
As for the action, some may complain it's pretty much the same as T2. Why is this a bad thing!? The chase scene alone was enough to give any action fan their fix. Anyone who says otherwise probably doesn't believe the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Overall, I definitely recommend this film. Though not as strong as the first two films, it still kept the Terminator franchise on its feet and had decent entertainment value. It could have been worse and completely spoil the series like a certain three prequel films from a certain popular space fighting franchise from far, far away. If this is the last film, it didn't end with a bang but with a solid satisfying march out the door. If T4 is made then at least T3 held the bridge up instead of letting it crash down. 3 out of 5.