A well made big budget B movie that could have been much worse.

Rating: 7/10 (9 July 2003)

If Cameron can do a sequel to Alien then why can't someone do a sequel to his baby? Overall it was a well made big budget B movie with a few surprises and more skill than I would have expected. The action sequences were quite good--especially the first chase. No, the T X was not as memorable as the T-1000--but give her credit for trying. She really could take abuse while holding the same expression.

Granted, I did miss Cameron's epic blue steel "look" and Brad Fiedel's music. The first Terminator was a decent low budget eighties thriller(the only flaw for me was that they cooked up the ludicrous notion that only organic tissue could time travel--which neither T2 or T3 held to). On the other hand, T2 was never what it could have been. It had the advantage of introducing computer graphics in a big action film--but its heavy handed social commentary (the children playing with guns sequence, the closing narration etc.) and often goofy out of character dialogue("I need a vacation") made my eyes roll . Cameron decided to make a nicer, friendlier terminator who discovers human emotions. Noble effort but I do not think he pulled it off. He also wanted us to believe that some good ol boy computer specialist is going to throw away his career and civilian life just because a kid, a crazy militia woman, and some guy with a mechanical arm shows up. And I cannot forgive him for missing the most obvious closing action sequence by not having a stripped down stop motion animated endoskeleton duking it out with the computer generated liquid metal shapeshifter in the steel mill. That would have been a spectacular sequence and probably made the final terminator-father moments less hokey than they appeared.

Anyway--back to T3
SPOILER WARNING

Arnold's Terminator: I thought he was less jokey than in T-2, and closer to a machine. And its fair to say that this Terminator actually succeeded (or will succeed) in completing its mission(ironically, including those of the first Terminator and the T-1000). As in T2--there were times when he came across as too human in his responses (though the first sequel did establish he was reprogrammed to adapt). Also the conflicted cyborg/car smashing sequence was too much.
Story-wise, the screenwriters evidently tried to put something into the story. The ending was brave--especially given the current international climate and new nuke technologies being discussed.

Overall it could have been much worse given hollywood's record of late, though another sequel would really be stretching it.