Inferior continuation to the Terminator saga lacks excitement

Rating: 5/10 (26 November 2015)

In this second sequel set ten years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgement Day when John Connor and his mother Sarah Connor seemingly stopped the occurrence of the war between war between mankind and Skynet, John Connor (played by Nick Stahl) is 19 years old and is living as the drifter with no place to live, paranoid about being found by another terminator. However, Skynet sends T-X (played by Kristanna Loken), a powerful and sinister android who's bent on killing Connor. Aided by his future wife Kate Brewster (played by Claire Danes) and CSM-101 (played by Arnold Schwartznegger), another terminator resembling T-800, John Connor must find Kate Brewster's father General Robert Brewster (played by David Andrews) who is capable of shutting down Skynet as it spreads a deadly virus across the globe that would lead to nuclear war and ignite the war between humans and the machines. Racing against the clock, will John Connor succeed and save the future of mankind, or does mankind have a dark future ahead of them?
The first two films were quite impressive, the first film dealt with the Terminator traveling back in time to assassinate Sarah Connor and her then-unborn son John Connor to prevent the war, and the second film followed the next terminator traveling back in time to protect John Connor from being killed by T-1000 as he was supposed to be the future resistance leader in the war against the machines. This film, directed by Jonathan Mostow, continues the story of the franchise, while this demonstrating some pulse-pounding action sequences and a compelling premise, it sadly falls short of the excitement that made the first two films entertaining. This movie continues the story on a rather middling note. From the first ten minutes, we are introduced to the evil robot T-X driving around town and executing these targeted civilians who serve no relevance to the plot. Then we are introduced to CSM-101 who arrives at a strip bar to steal the clothes and car keys of a bouncer, similar to what we saw in Terminator 2 with T-800. There is also the intense, but exciting special effects-heavy car chase scene with CSM-101, similar to the motorcycle chase with John Connor and T-1000. These two scenes, while full of excitement, play a great homage to the events of the last films to where it almost feels it is repeating the same events from the previous movie. From there on, the plot becomes less and less interesting, the action becomes less compelling, and the characters seem a bit tiresome. The main thing the characters are lacking is good dialogue and writing. Thus, they end up becoming less memorable. While the actions manages to keep the film standing, this film itself suffers in many places, especially the ending which I found rather anticlimactic, even though it sets the tone for the next film.
Terminator 3: Rise of The Machines did not live up to my expectations and fell inferior to the last two films, especially the second one which I consider the best of the franchise. I believe this could have been better if it was handled by James Cameron who was responsible of the last two movies.