not as bad as I thought it would be

Rating: 6/10 (1 August 2003)

I've seen this movie twice now - once on my own when I was a little bit drunk (and therefore not paying too much attention) and once with a friend when relatively sober. The first time I hated it - thought it was a cheap rip off - stealing scenes and lines from the original two movies. The second time I saw it I was starting to warm towards it and took the scene and line stealing as what I am sure it was intended, a homage to the first movies.
The action scenes were fairly good - Arnie could still cut it reasonably well as the terminator despite his age. The new terminator resembled the characteristics (the mannerisms not the physicality) of the T-1000 (Robert Patric) from T2 and this sorts of fits with the whole improved terminator line, i.e. less robotic more human. There were some glaring holes which although I tried hard I could not ignore
Spoiler possibility (I will keep as vague as possible) The secret base was stunningly unguarded, in fact most of the military establishments appear to have an open door policy for strangers :-)
I won't go into anymore but there are some
One of the things I did not like at all was the development of the John Connor character. This I feel betrayed the first 2 movies. In the first movie, Sarah Connor starts off weak and becomes strong. In the second movie, John Connor starts off strong and gets stronger. In the third movie John Connor appears to have had a personality change. He seems like a frightened and confused child - not at all like the strong willed resourceful character from the second film. This grated on me a bit as he seemed very whiny and weak in this movie.
The ending was reasonably good - covering the "The future is not fixed" sort of scenario and therefore allowing the rules to be broken from one movie to the next in a reasonably sensible way (As sensible as you can get with time travel movies).
Summary Direction - nice and fast paced - all you would expect from a T2 movie. Acting - mmmm, ok - but then again you are not expecting Shakespeare here Script - Some corny lines but generally sufficient Story - Reasonably good
6/10