It starts off badly

Rating: Null/10 (1 September 2003)

It starts off badly.
Call me an old romantic, but I like my Arnie films violent and bloody. Terminator 3 has a 12A certificate. Suddenly I'd worked out how so many under-10s had managed to cajole the cinema's ticket sellers: the occasional head and shoulders that I could see in front of me belonged to the requisite accompanying adult. I had horrible visions that one of the best sci-fi franchises was about to be watered down like RoboCop had been on the dreadful TV series (where the Future of Law Enforcement, rather than shoot between the eyes, prefers so shoot a table leg, which causes an unsuspecting vase to lose its balance and fall on the head of the Bad Guy).
Taking over director duties from James Cameron is U-571's Jonathan Mostow (a minus), Nick Stahl takes over the central-character-of-John-Connor duties from Edward Furlong (probably a plus), the Austrian OakT looks good for a man in his 50s and into the mix is thrown John Connor's love interest, Kate Brewster, played by Claire Danes.
Plot wise, T3's is essentially the same as T2's. A bad terminator has been sent back in time by the baddies (the machines) to kill the goodies (humans) before they become important future leaders in the future war between goodies and baddies. The goodies have therefore sent back a good terminator (Arnie) to protect the future leaders from the bad terminator.
The latest model of terminator is the T-X, played by former model Kristanna Loken and, according to the law of sequels, the baddie is contractually obliged to be more deadly that its predecessor... well, that's the idea. Loken's portrayal of a robot killing machine isn't too bad at all, even though at one point she does resort to making turns 90º at a time, however she is somewhat let down by her terminator. In T2, the top of the range terminator was made of liquid metal (which meant that it was effectively impossible snap in two) and could cleverly change shape to look like anyone he/she wanted. The scriptwriters, not wishing to lose that useful plot device, have made sure that the T-X can do this too. The difference is that underneath the liquid metal is a robot which, although near indestructible, does mean the "terminatrix" does have an Achilles heel. On the plus side, the manufactures have built-in some weapons and what appears to be the entire Maplin catalogue. The latter enables her to hack into and then control any computer. In fact, it turns out that the only thing she doesn't have is a built-in mobile phone or radio; these manufacturers need their heads banging together!
Which leads us nicely onto the first action scene. T-X enters into a car chase with heroes by driving 12-wheel articulated crane while remote controlling two police cars and an ambulance and dealing with Arnie swinging from the end of the crane hook. Crashing through buildings, cars exploding, skidding across people's lawns - fantastic! The scene's good enough to overlook the fact that the cars that T-X has hacked into aren't controlled by computer override, but instead by the pedals and steering wheel moving themselves. All that was missing was Michael Knight.
It's not just the plot that's the same as T2, so are the gags. Arnie gets to use his catchphrases, we get to laugh at a naked Arnie stealing clothes from a camp stripper in the middle of his act, Arnie likes wearing sunglasses, etc. Make no mistake, the star of the show is Arnie. And he's been given much more to actually do this time round. Almost without exception, this a mistake.
One of the great things about T2 on DVD is the extended version where they flick the switch that enables Arnie to learn. Indeed, this would have been an interesting theme to explore. The central theme of T3 is destiny, and that there's nothing we can do to avoid it. Of course, this allows for this sequel, because the rationale is that although they thought they'd successfully changed the future at the end of T2, in fact they hadn't. This is crudely worked into the script. For me, John Connor's and Kate Brewster's realisation and easy acceptance of the ideas of time travel and destiny (including the fate that they're meant to be together) weakens their characters. I think that John Connor's speech would have been better used telling it to Kate rather than to the audience as the opening monologue.
So, is it better than T2? No. Of course, that would have been hard. Some things are better (the hydrogen fuel cells, T-X being able to DNA test by licking blood, seeing the wobbly first model terminators), many things are the same (losing the roof of a car by driving under something too low), but too many things are worse (Arnie not measuring body count to one decimal place, the pointless cameo by Dr Silberman, the conveniently-timed failings of the bad terminator, use of liquid metal shape changing special effects, the fact that you only get the signature tune on the end credits and many more besides).
Still a bit of a laugh, though. I'm looking forward to T4 already.