Redundant

Rating: 6/10 (30 March 2005)

I watched this movie, knowing that after T2 the only possibility to make a sequel would be to break with the existing storyline somehow and come up with something as 'Hollywood-plausible' as the trick used to justify "Alien: resurrection". So I expected nothing more than an action movie, probably combining elements from the two previous movies, using more special effects, more spectacular explosions, and contemporarily adding the obligatory woman beating up men. And I was kind of right. The one-liners were there, the spectacular chases, the CGI effects, the explosions, and a female terminator sowing death and destruction and grabbing Arnie in the crotch.
*WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!*
I won't go into detail about all the holes in the plot, because this has been done in countless reviews before. Something I haven't read during a sampling of the thousands of reviews, is that at the end, Connor says something like the Terminator has tricked them into the nuclear shelter. This would fit with the dialog right after the chase in the funeral car, when the Terminator at first didn't seem to want to change its objective of leading Connor and Brewster to a safe place in Mexico. Maybe it knew about the Crystal Peak shelter and tricked them into believing they could take out Skynet, but actually lead them to that shelter. However, the only reason why they went there, is that Brewster's dad said the Skynet mainframe is located there. Or maybe I was so confused about all the other plot holes that I got this wrong, whatever.
One thing I don't understand about many of the reviews here is that people find it so obvious that this movie ought to have a T4 sequel. Maybe they didn't catch Arnie's last phrase "We'll meet again" which IMHO only refers to the fact that Connor will be killed by this very terminator in the future, as explained during the conversation in the van. Actually I believe this movie has literally blown up every chance for an interesting sequel which still has something in common with the Terminator movies as we know them. The earth is nuked, which only leaves an opportunity to make a movie which is one long battle scene in a post-apocalyptic world, the kind we saw a few of in the first two movies as flash-forwards - or flash-backs if you want. In other words, this would be something like Mad Max but then with dimmed lights and robots, which are so numerous and strong that it'll require loads of 'Hollywood-plausibility' to avoid the only real plausible outcome, being the eradication of humanity. There is no room for anything of the stuff that made the first movies interesting. But apparently, many people want to see robots beating the crap out of humans during two hours until they are all dead. Well, I don't. Not even Cameron would be able to make an interesting movie out of that.
Overall, I found this a redundant addition to the two existing excellent movies. It didn't work as a sequel, nor as a tribute, nor as a parody, only as an action movie to pass the time on an otherwise boring evening.