Better than The first?

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2003)

Controversial I know, but over the past four days I''ve seen this film 3 times and its grown each time. I'm not a massive fan of the Terminator francise, but i've loved Schwartzenegger ever since I can remember, his recent downfall in ratings and reviews needed to stop and T3 was the perfect way to do this. He provides a performance which is the greatist by any leading man in an action film since? what True lies? I don't know, he conveys power, but also willing to laugh at himself. Does Vin Deisel do this? Does Will Smith command the screen every time he's on it? Arnie has proved with this movie he is a star at another level to the before mentioned actors. His fee he picked up was deserved as it would not have been a movie without him.
Arnies not the only good thing about this film don't make any mistake about that. John Mostow creates a vision which no other director has dared do over the past few years, take a high budget film and dare cut it down to under 2hrs, sometimes a long picture deserves its length, The two lord of the rings films could not have been cut down, the size of narrative Peter Jackson is conveying deserves more screen time not less. Lets take other narratives though, the Matrix? it should have been shorter or not made, Hulk undoing was making a 2 1/2 hr film out of such a simple idea, people get bored, and in the end remember trudgeing through endless minutes of dialouge which is pretentious and meaningless rather than the sequences which did inspire awe. I was guilty of this with Hulk myself. John Mostow has broken the mould, he's taken a simple chase story and made it the length it should be, and i'm sorry but the ten minute fight scene between the T101 and the TX p****s on the proverbial parade of any of the 20 minute monster fights in matrix reloaded! You just get bored.
Character development is riskey and underrated in this movie thats Mostow and all the other actors taking the limelight.
Okay it cost 140m to make, thats a lot of money, and it's fair to demand an exceptional movie. Thats most peoples problem with this film, But this film is a lesson in making films to all the would be action directors and actors, make sure its not to long, unless it needs be, use real explosions and cars whereever you can, and get a star to perform in the movie, a name, who wasn't a little excited when the austrian oaks name fills the screen before the title of the film comes up?
For these simple lessons i give this movie 9/10 I give the same to T2 and I give 8/10 to The Terminator. T3 can kick the industry up the arse and show producers that just because it's costing loads it doesn't need hours of screen time and CGI being used to it's death. In an ideal world Arnold and Mostow will have recovered the action genre so the next Bond film is worth watching and the Matrix Revolutions doesn't get the hype of Reloaded. (and Vin Deisel will never work again!)
A cult classic.
How often do you say that about a $140m film?