An incredibly disappointing and disgustingly commercial 3rd film - shame on everyone involved (SPOILERS, but a true T2 fan should never see this one)

Rating: 7/10 (12 July 2003)

I was in the U.S. Virgin Islands (which have no movie theatres) during the opening weekend of July 4th. Like many fans, the trailers left me afraid that the franchise's third installment would turn into another Alien 3. I heard reviews saying the film wasn't bad, and even actually good. I went into the theatre expecting an above-average summer action flick and a decent continuation of the Terminator saga. What I got was a big, fat stinker of a movie.
There is a scene VERY early on in T3 that signals the start of the end.
Like most people, I watched T2 on DVD before seeing T3 to "get in the mood." It held up very well, of course, and I even felt compelled to watch the documentaries on the making of the movie. Cameron said, "It's important not to go too far and make the Terminator a clown figure." Cameron gave Arnold plenty of sombre, stoic scenes to emphasize the serious nature of this killing machine.
In T3, Arnie gets a set of clothes from someone else like in the first two movies. Except, this time, the victim isn't a street tough or a biker: it's a gay stripper at a ladies' bar. When Arnold reaches into the coat for a pair of sunglasses, he pulls out ridiculous Elton John-esque shades. People in the audience chuckled, but I knew in my heart that they were making fun of one of the most memorable villains/heroes ever at the movie's expense.
T3 plays like one of those movies shown on the brilliant cartoon "The Critic" - cornball humor, overdone action, and little underlying meaning. Mostow, while obviously a fan of the material, doesn't have much in the way of execution. The trademark Terminator feel is gone; no more cold blues, gritty blacks, and warm colors. The pacing of the movie is okay, but the "look" of the movie is all wrong and feels artificial.
That brings me to the sad part of the review. CGI SHOULD BE BANNED FROM MOVIES FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Why do the special effects of T2, a movie made more than a decade ago, look more realistic than T3? In a move that will inevitably be likened to "The Phantom Menace," Mostow overuses CGI almost from the very start. The TX is completely unbelievable as a deadly weapon - she looks more like a video game character. The nuclear holocaust of T2, one of the finest depictions of a nuclear blast ever put to film, is a computer-generated mess that looks really, really bad in T3. The future war scenes, once gritty and intense, are actually kind of boring. The stunts and fighting, once rooted in some of the best practical effects work in the business, are almost all obviously done on a blue screen or in a computer. I mean, THE "BATTLE ACROSS TIME" SHOW AT UNIVERSAL STUDIOS (also directed by Cameron) looks better than this movie! (and it was more satisfying...)
Arnold and the cast do an okay job with the stuff written for them. Claire Danes and Nick Stahl worked well, but why couldn't they hire somebody that looked like Eddie Furlong? Leonardo DiCaprio (of all people) would've been a better choice, since he's a dead ringer for Edward and even worked with Claire Danes in "Romeo + Juliet". Kristanna Loken lacks the menace and presence of Robert Patrick, even though she says even fewer lines (she doesn't even talk for the last half of the movie!). Arnold still looks good, but (and this is partially the script's fault) you never feel like he's Terminator - he feels like Arnold. The bit players feel okay but slightly hackneyed. There's a cameo by Dr. Silberman for the fans, but Silberman doesn't feel like the Silberman in the past two movies.
That brings the problem of continuity. The Terminator POV screens in this one look nothing like the first two. The music is all different - I long for Brad Fiedel's driving techno-industrial score, not Marco Beltrami's forgettable drivel. I am definitely not happy with the whole idea of Connor's "lieutenants" - why the hell does Connor have to save the world, anyway? If he has more than half a dozen lieutenants, couldn't someone else take his place?
Surprisingly, the story as a whole isn't bad. I'm kind of miffed that they threw out the whole "the future's not set" angle, but the ending was decent. It's just that the silly, botched execution of an inexperienced, b-grade director brings down the film.
2 out of four stars