A Disappointing Addition to The Terminator Franchise

Rating: 5/10 (4 October 2008)

When the production of Terminator 3 was announced, the first shocking news that I found was that James Cameron was no longer going to be the director. The other surprise was that the villain was going to be a female. Yes, it was going to be a female cyborg played by Kristanna Loken. With these two facts known, I was convinced that one ought not to expect anything from the third movie. And then came a ray of hope or was it? Arnold continues with his role as the Terminator. Well, I felt there was something to cheer about after all since it is not easy to imagine anybody else playing the Terminator.
When the trailer came out, I saw the clips of Kristanna Loken roaming almost nude in the streets and adjusting herself to look more attractive, I feared that the Terminator 3 was going to converge with the concept of Species movies i.e. a female villain moving around seducing men and eventually killing them. But thankfully, the movie was nothing like that and that was a relief for me, a big one indeed.
Finally, the movie was a disappointment for me. Firstly, we start out with a lame script. Improperly placed dialogs, really bad! Arnold says, "She'll be back!" Arnold steps inside a lady's night club completely nude. The first goggles he wears are weird star shaped ones! What are the script writers thinking? Are they making a sequel or a parody? I could not understand! I don't know about others but I surely could not understand why the director and the writer put in what they did! And then we come to Arnold Schwargenneger. He was so convincing in the first two movies. Speaking in a way that was so robotic. That strict tone of voice that indicated near lack of emotion in the first two movies was replaced by a tone of voice that is more anger and frustration. Sometimes, one may feel that Arnold is more like a frustrated soldier who has been sent to do something much against his wishes rather than a cyborg who is programmed to do a task and is free from the very concept of emotion.
For those of you who have seen the alternate ending of the Terminator 2 movie, you might realize that this ending does not allow the existence of this movie at all. But even when you choose to ignore the alternate ending of T2 where John Conner has become a senator and the Judgment Day has been prevented, you might not find the T3 as a worthy sequel.