Third movie does it's best to make two previous films pointless

Rating: 4/10 (3 July 2003)

****Plot Points In This Review****
I went into Terminator 3 with high hopes and high expectations. What I left with, was the same feeling I had after viewing Alien 3 for the first time. It had somehow accomplished nothing more than tarnishing the two films that had come before it. Through two Terminator films, we were led to believe that things that happen in the future could be changed, that certain things didn't have to be inevitable. With Terminator 3, we find out that was all nonsense, that there was no reason for the existence of the first two movies at all, because what's going to happen is going to happen and you can't do a darn thing about it. (just delay it for a while till we can get the next movie made). So what we end up with is three movies from the George Lucas School of prequels, though we didn't know it till now. Thanks, but no thanks for cluing us in.
There are plenty of exciting action and chase sequences in the film, and they do grab your attention while they are on the screen. Still, they are nothing more or less than we've seen in any other Summer Blockbuster, so I can't recommend seeing this movie on that alone. Schwarzenegger does his usual fine one note job as The Terminator, but Nick Stahl's John Connor is so wimpy, we long for Edward Furlong to pop up and give him a swift kick in the pants. Clare Danes as Kate Brewster, Connor's future wife, is by far more interesting, and you begin to wonder how John Connor and not her ever became the one to lead the rise against the machines. It almost makes you glad that in the future a Terminator does take out John Connor. I for one would feel a lot better about it if Kate were leading my revolution. Kristana Lokken, despite not having much to do except morph, is menacing enough, but no more or no less than Robert Patrick was in the previous film. She just has the advantage of having a few more tricks up her sleeve.
Will there ever be a Terminator 4? Could happen I suppose, if this one makes the major dollars as the previous films did. Trouble is, we now know the ending, and as in the Star Wars prequels, when you know what is going to happen, getting there just isn't that much fun anymore.