Doesn't terminate the first two, but still great

Rating: 7/10 (26 August 2004)

The third (and final???) installment in the Terminator trilogy brings events rate up to date and sees the birth of Skynet and the story of judgment day, and the efforts to prevent it.
Without James Cameron the film lacks the finesse and tghtness of the first two films, it doesn't have the same feel, and it lacks Cameron's guiding hand. Luckily Big Arnie is on top form giving one of his better performances, probably his best film since True Lies, returning in same same role, albeit as a different Terminator unit from the same series model. This time the enemy is the immensely brutal and advanced T-X, played superbly by Kristianna Loken, who manages to combine sultry seductiveness with ruthless brutal killing seemingly effortlessly.
Claire Danes, who does a fine job as Kate Brewster, a vetinary nurse who is unfortunately drawn into the war against the machines, and her performance is first rate.
The script is nice, it has a few holes in it but mostly holds together OK, there are a few nice twists, especially the history of Arnie's Terminator, and the rise of Skynet is very nicely explained with a very good showing of 'American generals and politicians as morons' - watch it you'll like it.
The let down of the film for me is Nick Stahl as John Conner, who gives an average performance and fails to bring much energy and depth to the character who had great potential and was played expertly by Edward Furlong in T2. In T3 Conner is a lost and selfish character hiding from nothing but himself, and there is no way to connect this John Conner with the young Conner in T2, or the resistance leader he was to become. Eddie's young Conner had a brash rebellious nature and you could see how Conner could become the leader of the human resistance to the machines, but Nick Stahl's portrayal just falls flat and doesn't impress. A nice cameo from the ever brilliant Earl Boen as Dr Silberman makes a nice comedy moment, and the sporadic light comic relief from Arnie makes the film more bearable. A shame that Linda Hamilton didn't wasn't in the film, though the character is included to make a good comedy and quintisentially Sarah Conner moment.
Overall T3 is good, it doesn't have the same impact that the original film had, nor the dynamic fast paced story of T2. The film suffers from 'third in trilogy syndrome', where all the best ideas have been put into the first two and the third film is just trying to grind out the idea (see Aliens 3, Police Academy 3 onwards, etc) but everything is saved by Arnie's brilliant performance as the Terminator.
Final statements - as a member of the Terminator series, it isn't as good as the first two. Had the first two never been made, or perhaps if this was the second film, not the third, it could have been called great. Its very good if viewed as a separate film, merely good when considered in the trilogy. Will there be a T4 when Arnie finishes his term as governor Terminator? Anything is possible, but judging from T3, somehow someway James Cameron will need to be convinced to work on the project. T1 gets 8 out of ten, T2 gets nine, T3 gets a grudging 7.