Extremely Mediocre

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2004)

Above all, this movie even failed to create (for me) any real sense of urgency or excitement. Which is the essential point behind an action movie.
Some of the problems inherent in Terminator 3
1. Essentially, the plot is wrong. Terminator 3 negates the positive vision of the previous two movies (that Sarah and John Connor can prevent or at least seriously influence the future). T3 abandons that vision for a entirely fatalistic one (that, in fact, Judgement Day cannot be prevented or even really influenced).
2. The timing and pacing of the movie just seem off. The car cash sequence runs on too long, the battle in the bathroom runs on too long, the robo-tanks are boring, the Skynet "planes" are easily destroyed, etc.
3. The new Terminatrix is essentially the same as T-1000 in T2, so she's literally boring, whereas the T-1000 is really new and exciting in T2. You're frequently surprised by the T-1000 in T2 whereas you're just bored by the Terminatrix in T3. The acting by Robert Patrick was quite good (really effective in being scary and mechanical), whereas Kristana Loken is just.........well, I just wasn't scared or even impressed.
4. The plot was muddled so that it felt both boring (repeats in many aspects T2) and just messy, so you never really felt the suspense which was very pronounced in the first two movies.
5. Claire Danes was a poor substitute for Linda Hamilton. Again, Linda Hamilton brought an unusual range of depth of emotion for an action movie. Claire Danes was just your archetypal cardboard damsel in distress.
6. The action sequences were simply not that impressive. If you notice, while in T1 and T2, the characters were really fighting for their lives - they're wounded, bloody, covered in debris and sweat, really battered. In T3, the only thing the hero John Connor suffers is that the Terminatrix breaks his leg at the very end of the movie. Kate Brewster isn't even scratched. You never get the sense that their lives are truly in danger. In fact, the Terminatrix and John Connor only come face to face twice (both for extremely short segments) and she doesn't even wound him (until the very end of the movie).
Overall, this was a really mediocre movie.