Not bad, but not great

Rating: 6/10 (21 July 2003)

Contains spoilers Okay, here's another chance where hollywood could have pulled off a great movie but proves once again that a quality sequel is second to a just producing a sequel.
T3 has just been reduced to the status of just another sequel. James Cameron's T2, like Titanic, Aliens and the Abyss are brilliant in their construction. Sure there are minor plot questions but nothing major. Character development and the story was as important as the special effects. Cameron poured quality into T2. It is the quality of a sequel that will stand the test of time. Like Aliens stands the test of time, but Aliens 3 and 4 do not.
So what are my complaints? 1) the comedy in the film was wrong and out of place, 2) the film didn't make me really care about the story, and 3) the plot sucks.
Here is just a few instances of crappy plot that should have been fixed before shooting began.
1) How did a guy who looks like a hobo loaded with guns and explosives, a weightlifter clad in leather bikerwear and a normal civilian-looking girl get into the middle of command and control in a high security military installation. And they can walk around freely. Even though the girl is the general's daughter, they would never get past the first gate. Somebody would at least question the guy with explosives.
2) I won't give away the movie here but the TX has a list of people it needs to "terminate". #1 on the list would be John Conner, #2 and 3 on the list would be the girl and her General father. When the TX first arrives here, why does she go looking for the guy working at the fast food place? Then she she goes to where the girl works at 4 o'clock in the morning. I thought these things are supposed to be smart. Somebody on this site already brought up this point, but shouldn't she have went to the girl's apartment at 4am because humans are normally sleeping at that time? Oh yeah, and for some reason Arnold went to the girls work at 4 am too. It must be a popular hang out for terminators.
3) The TX somehow knew the John Conner was going to the fallout shelter in the desert. I won't give away anything here either, but I think this is kinda messed up. There way no way for the TX to know this. Especially since Arnold earlier said they needed to hide in Mexico. So... the TX should have assumed that as well. The terminators are supposed to be smart not all-knowing.
4) The whole Cyber-dyne/Skynet thing that made sense in the second film gets confused in this one. If you pick up a book and read the first two chapters and the entire story is built around certain facts that are butchered in chapter 3, you are probably going to throw the book right out the window. Maybe I'm just confused on this one but according to T2, without Cyber-dyne, Skynet and the Terminators won't exist. Cyber-dyne was eradicated in chapter 2. Why couldn't we have come up with some alternate explanation for a "Judgement Day" sequel without ruining this "book" in chapter 3.

There was many more instances but these just flat out bugged me during the film. Can't someone during pre-production screen these things and say something like, "hey, this don't make sense" or "this story blows"?
This would have been a better film if they would have 3 of the Robert Patrick T-1000's and have them sent back for a man hunt to eliminate a list of people. The TX was kinda cool, but the T-1000 was a better advisary. To have the one TX running all over the place and mangling the plot with it, was stupid.
More importantly, they also needed to explain WHY does the terminator technology still exists today and WHY skynet still exists and WHY that virus was introduced to the machines of the world. And who created and introduced that virus??? I don't know either and I've seen the film.
I think this all boils down to the director who is the man in charge here. Basically it is because Jonathan Mostow was not a great choice for director. He hasn't done anything amazing yet. His only real success so far was U-571, and that was not a great movie either.
A director needs to be able to supply us the viewers with more than flashes, kicks, and explosions. We want value for our money. We want a story that makes sense. And we want every chapter (sequel) to fill in more of the pieces of the puzzle for us. We want to love a movie because it has meaning. If it has meaning and value we will go see it more than once, even at $8.50. We will want to own it on DVD. We will want to own the director's cut with added footage in to give us more of what we already love. That's what Hollywood needs to understand and then maybe we won't get crap sequels anymore.
Not everything has to be flawless in a movie or its' sequels but we want an offering that does not insult our intelligence like this movie does.