With a good story...

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2003)

I was wondering at first if this third installment would live up to the class of the original saga without James Cameron. No, an aged Arnold Schwarzenegger was not my subject of concern. It was director Jonathan Mostow. He was good in U-571 but it was to see how he makes up with all the hypes. I was wondering about the story as well. The Terminator saga differs in this point from the other contemporary movie serieses. That it never had a specific storyline. When the Terminator (1984) was made, nobody knew nothing about a sequel. Terminator 3's exact story was not planned while making Terminator 2 (1992). This is probably the reason behind such long gaps between the movies.
But I am quite satisfied with both. Mostow did a nice job. Of course he is no Cameron, but I liked his simple style. This movie had to contain some first-person storytelling by John Connor himself. There was no other way to describe the situation. I felt relieved to see Mostow did exactly that. There were some rather 'comic' sequences and dialogs. I take it as Mostow's credit as well. The casting was quite interesting. Schwarzenegger... well, it's irrelevant if he was good or not at this point. Claire Danes, probably one of the most underrated actresses of recent years, performed very well. Hers was a strong role. And it was perfect casting. Nick Stahl may look geekish in the movie but I found him not that bad as critics are saying. The surprise was Kristanna Loken. The idea of a female terminator was very unique, though not too unexpected. Whether she is decent as an actress the future can tell, but all I can say she fitted into the role very finely. She turned out to be one of the major attractions.
And the story! I feel very happy to write that I enjoyed the story pretty much. It has probably the best story out of the three. Why? simply because it connects the past and the future. In the other three movies you just saw the possibility that Connor's going to lead the war against SkyNet in some future. But this movie showed exactly how it all began. In the shell it may look just like a replay of T2, with a robot from future to kill him and a robot to save him. But T3 is not all about that. It was a bold and revolutionary idea to show the start of the war at last. I don't know any plans about T4 this time, but as far as the things are going it may not feature Arnold at all.
Quite enjoyable; 8/10.