Can't say I'm not disappointed

Rating: Null/10 (16 November 2003)

The lesson here is simple and useful. If you're watching an action movie where the action hero is just barely awake enough to protect his sweetie, to selflessly throw his body over hers when something blows up, but is too thick and stupid to see something coming that actually has something to do with the story... ...you are watching a chick flick. Like the Mighty Joe Young remake, or Final Destination II. Movies like this are different from Die Hard or James Bond movies, because it's up to John McClane and 007 to unravel the riddle in a mystery in an enigma. Indiana Jones can figure out the bad guy is digging in the wrong spot, so his movie is a guy's movie. Not the case here. If John Connor ever had this ability, he lost it before this movie started or picked it up after it was over. Everything has to be explained to him, while he listens, slack-jawed, then reacts with joy, despair, whatever. He never, ever puts himself ahead of the game, and it's obvious there is a crowd-pleasing rule in place to keep him from doing so.
Which would be fine, as far as spur-of-the-moment fun action-adventure flicks would be concerned. But leaving aside the point that this installment arrives after a twelve year wait, there's a huge logical plot hole here. John Crybaby Skywalker Connor is the leader of the resistance and it's worth sending a killer robot back in time, at presumably enormous expense, to rub him out. Why is that? If he gave the resistance life with his resourcefulness, or with his ability to motivate people, T4 is going to have to supply some explanation of how he picked these things up. I would not put my life on the line to follow this man. I would not so much as loan him a couple of quarters to do his laundry.
But he's George Washington of the 21st century. He makes the difference between a victorious (or insurmountable) resistance or no resistance at all, and he is shrewd and cunning enough to use time travel to arrange his own conception. It would have taken very little trouble to have him, just once or twice, work his way out of a jam like Michael Biehn did 20 years ago. That would have made all the difference to me.
Can plot & character problems completely ruin a movie? Maybe not, and that problem doesn't ruin this movie. But it certainly costs it some points. The time-travel thread in T1 made my head hurt, because I cared enough about what was going on to pursue it. Because of the shabby treatment T3 gave to the story and the characters, it can't ever give me that headache because I don't care that much. I can't say the saga has been ruined, but I can't say I'm not disappointed.