So much potential that went unfulfilled

Rating: 5/10 (18 April 2020)

Since I first saw this movie in theaters back in the summer of 2003, I've had mixed feelings about it since then. For many years, I thought it was great, not as good as the first two, but good enough on its own. Granted, when I first saw it, I had only recently watched the original two films so I was not a hardcore fan of the Terminator franchise at that point. As the years went on, I began to better appreciate the quality of the first two films, and unfortunately, Terminator 3 really lost it's shine. There were some good parts but they were far few in between nods to the first 2 movies and goofy humor that did not work with this film, given the circumstances taking place.
In 2004, a decade after the events of Terminator 2, Judgment Day was averted, Sarah Conner is dead, John is a "living off the grid" for fear that Terminators may still come after him from the future. And one does. Only this time, he's not the only target. John's future wife, Kate, is also on Skynet's hit list. And she also happens to be the daughter of the guy who oversaw the creation of Skynet. And Judgment Day is also taking place... on the same day.
The problems with this movie is that it had a lot of potential to be great, maybe not greater than Cameron's duology, but close enough to them. But the people behind this film didn't seem to care that much about it. The start of the film is a big hint. They screwed up John's age. In the narration, John says the machines tried to kill him when he was 13. He was 10 in Terminator 2. Judgment is inevitable but there is barely a discussion about it. The whole climax of T2 was based on preventing Judgment Day and the characters just shrug it off. No explanation of how Skynet still came into being, how any of Miles Dyson's research survive when they blew up Cyberdyne, nothing. Judgment Day is happening within hours and the characters don't find out until halfway through the movie. I guess that wasn't important enough to bring up until after the "talk to the hand" gag and all the other pointless humor. And that's another thing, the humor was so out of place for this film, especially considering that 3 billion lives are at risk of being wiped out. And this is just to tip of the ice berg.
Now, these could be seen as nitpicks but during the commentary for the film, the director (not Cameron) states that he doesn't know why Terminators arrive from the future naked. This was explained in the interrogation scene in the first Terminator film. The way how the director ignored basic lore established in the previous films makes me furious. How did we end up with people who cared so little about this universe? It's something to this day that still has me shake my head in disappointment. And it's another reason why Salvation has garnered more appreciation (the people working on that movie actually cared about the universe Cameron created).
The character of John Connor was okay, I can find it understandable why they made him the way he was. Kate Brewster was tolerable, I mean was Claire Daines the best actress they could find for the role? And of course, it was great seeing Arnold back as the Terminator even though at this point, his age was very apparent here. Kristina did a decent job as the Terminatrix, though the TX was not as menacing as the T-1000. I was disappointed Linda Hamilton didn't come back as Sarah Conner but when I found out why she refused to be in this movie, I totally understood her decision. She was barely going to be ion it and was going to die and the characters were not going to mourn her. Is it really too harsh to say the people behind this movie didn't care about it, when they were going to write the character who was the heart of the franchise in such an insulting manner.
There were some good parts such as some of the action scenes. But a lot of those were underscored by the badly placed humor. And the movie did not have the gravity of the previous films, even though there was much more at stake in this film. Even though it came out over a decade after T2, T3 has aged worse. It feels like a made for TV movie than a feature film. The ending was the best part. It was a good shock and great setup for a sequel. If only 90% of the movie was just like it.
What should have been a great addition ended up being a forgotten, lackluster entry in a dying franchise.