The kiss of death that started the franchise's demise

Rating: 4/10 (11 November 2019)

Terminator 1 was a great sci-fi horror flick with some action thrown in. The T-800 was a menacing, unstoppable blunt force killer and Schwarzenegger was perfect for the role.
Then we had Michael Biehn, an underrated actor, delivering a memorable performance as Kyle Reese, and Sarah Connor played iconically by Linda Hamilton.
Terminator 2, for me, was the absolute apex of the series. We had the central cast back again and Edward Furlong put in a good performance as young John Connor. Somehow Michael Edwards' 20 second appearance as Future John Connor was the absolute best in the whole series too, selling the fearsome image of the man John was going to become simply by robotically surveying the battlefield with his scarred and grimly set face.
And who can forget Robert Patrick as the T-1000? He doesn't breathe when he runs, he never blinks, and even when trying to be "friendly" there is something completely insidious about him. The absolute best antagonist in the Terminator franchise.
T2 had themes. Responsible versus irresponsible use of science, whether AI can truly be human, determinism versus fate. It also offered a lot of commentary on how humans are naturally stupid and self destructive ("It is in your nature to destroy yourselves.")
Then T3 came along. Oh dear.
Not only did all of the central core cast of the previous movies, sans Arnie, completely disappear but the film immediately misunderstands what made the previous films great.
The Terminator movies were never about huge explosions or massive action set pieces. Those things happened of course, but they weren't the central attraction of the films. What made them so good was the motif of humans working together to prevent a horrific future brought about by human hubris, greed and arms racing.
T3 by contrast is all explosions, throwaway misplaced comedy and no brain.
The TX is basically "The T-1000 but more better-er" because it can smuggle big guns in it's arms.
Yet it's not better. It's nowhere near as scary as the T-1000 because it acts really stupidly, barely even bothering to disguise itself. The one time it puts on a disguise, it randomly removes it in broad daylight right in front of it's victim for no reason, allowing them to escape.
The T-1000 never needed big plasma guns because it was stealthy and frighteningly intelligent. It understood that people trust police officers and so it disguised as one. It socially manipulated people and abused the authority it's disguise gave it. It never revealed itself in the open unless it was sure it could get away with it.
The T-1000 could be your mother, it could be your father, it might even just be disguising itself as the floor under your chair until it has the opportunity to silently stab you to death. And it would do so efficiently and emotionlessly. Terrifying.
The T-X by contrast seems to have bizarre emotions, weird quirky habits (shoving blood soaked rags in it's mouth?) and it's first transformation isn't played for horror, but for laughs as it enlarges it's boobies. Really?
Nick Stahl as Connor is rather miscast, he is a whiny washout who spends most of the movie ineffectually being useless or whinging (an annoying pattern every movie since seems to have jumped on, totally neutering Connor).
But perhaps the worst crime the movie commits is in clumsily making Judgement Day "inevitable". The film offers no sensible logic for why this is, but the message is clear: Fate is fate, don't even bother to change things. Why even get up in the morning?
Wow, what a stupid message!
Terminator 2 was a very dark film, but it ends on an uplifting note when Sarah comments that "If a Terminator can learn the value of human life, perhaps we can too." The whole theme of T1 and 2 was that by acting sensibly, compassionately and using science responsibly, humans can make a bright future for themselves rather than a terrible one.
Meanwhile the message of T3 is "Just do whatever you want, it's all pre-determined and there's no point to anything." and yet at the same time "We must fight robots for some reason."
T3 established the same tired pattern in all subsequent Terminator movies; increasingly silly twists, rampant CGI, over the top new "better" Terminators that lack all the subtlety and menace of the original T-1000 and weak casting.
I for one hope they just let the "franchise" die now, in my mind nothing after T2 is canon, simple as.