A tragic continuation of two astounding films

Rating: 1/10 (16 August 2003)

I beg of you not to pay to watch this film. Doing do will only encourage further series-destroying sequels.
The inventiveness, the atmosphere, the sincerity, the tension and so many other attributes of the first two films are gleefully swept away by this trash. Perhaps James Cameron is not the finest director in America, but after 109 painful minutes of this film you realise just what Cameron could do, and Mostow can't.
The attempt to inject humour into this film at every opportunity was severely misjudged. Cameron's screenplay for the first and second film kept the tension high, explained the story without becoming over complicated and involved us with the characters. No fear of any of this with Terminator 3. After about twenty minutes I couldn't have cared less what happened to any of the characters, and Nich Stahl's acting is so lamentable that you are left to wonder who could have possibly been worse in the role.
Mostow's direction is a mess, with scenes shot too close, removing style and clarity from chase scenes and reducing them to a bewildering array of explosions and broken glass. Eyes quickly glaze over, and you just know everything will work out in some way for our dull heroes.
The special effects in this are not a patch on other recent productions, and the glossy computer animation of the terminators, especially during the opening future-war scene and Loken's weapon attachment are lacking all the ingenuity of the sublime T-1000 effects from 1991.
Add to this mix an appalling score by Marco Beltrami that is instantly forgettable (surely a recognisable theme would have been the first priority in such a hackneyed film) and a complete irreverence for the story of the previous two films and you're left with a movie that makes you wish you hadn't seen it, and wish that the studio had left Cameron's work alone.