A not-as-good Terminator, but at least no Alien: Resurrection

Rating: 6/10 (29 August 2005)

It seemed like nothing so much as a less-skilled rehash of the first movie. One long chase, really, with a not-altogether-convincing romantic plot, clever touches that must've played great on paper but thudded on-screen, but with nothing really so offensive to make you angry. A nice, fast-moving B-movie.
In the original, things were so much tighter. The old saw where if the audience has to work harder to fill in plot holes than the screenwriters seemed to was in full force. In the original, there was a reason to use a big model for the terminator - tech was lower, and the bulk and armor gave him an advantage. Why a girl? The T-1000 had no problem emulating females, so any kind of infiltration doesn't wash. Why have killer robots in storage with full magazines? Was Skynet the virus (if not, what was it), or the anti-virus that failed (if I just missed it, mea culpa)? In T2, Skynet had a good reason for genocide - it was self-defense against an immediate, clear threat (it woke up to discover it was about to be killed precise for that reason). Here, it was apparently "just evil"... or something?
Still, it had a good beat and people were dancing, so I give it a 6.