'We'll meet again'

Rating: Null/10 (1 August 2003)

Like a good Terminator fan-boy, I reacted with child-like excitement when I first heard that there would be a T3. That excitement soon turned to disappointment and eventually despair when I learned that James Cameron would not return to direct, and Linda Hamilton and Edward Furlong would not reprise their roles as the Connors.
But then the reviews started to come in, and I was given hope... but then I remembered feeling the same way about The Phantom Menace and coming out of the cinema feeling like a part of my life had just been stolen. So, I promised myself I would not give in to the hype. I would be prepared for a bad Terminator movie.
I needn't have bothered! This film rocks!
Okay, so it doesn't top the mind-bogglingly epic all round perfection of T2, but it's still a helluva film, and a worthy addition to the series. The story is a good one, and it fleshes out the Terminator universe in ways you might not expect. It also raises interesting questions about fate vs. determinism that my brain still hasn't fully digested (hey, I just got back from the cinema five minutes ago!), and which provide the perfect excuse to watch the old films just one more time...
Nick Stahl is excellent as John Connor. In T2 we saw how Sarah had transformed from a fluffy pink girl into the action queen, hardened by the knowledge that she had to prepare John for Judgement Day. Well, time has had a different effect on her son. Haunted by nightmares of Judgement Day, living in denial about the events of T2, he is forever paranoid that one day the machines will come back for him. His fear has made him weak, and when Judgment Day comes, he doesn't feel ready. Stahl portrays this self-doubt brilliantly, while never leaving the audience in doubt that he really is the one who will lead the resistance.
Claire Danes is also good as the woman who finds her life drawn into chaos, trying to make sense of the fact that this unfamiliar path is in fact her destiny. She has just the right balance of human frailty and future-heroine-badassness.
Earl Boen makes a welcome cameo, though his role is really nothing more than an easter egg for Terminator geeks. The other supporting actors are good enough in their respective roles, but very little screen time is given to any minor characters.
Kristianna Loken isn't nearly as menacing as Robert Patrick was, but then the film isn't really about the heroes vs. the T-X in the way that T1 and T2 were about the protagonists vs. Arnie and Robert Patrick respectively. Certainly, the film needed a Terminator that was different to the original two, and sequel logic dictates that she had to be more dangerous than either of them. She was, but she didn't scare the s**t out of me the way the other two did.
Last, but certainly not least, the man himself. He said he'd be back, and he wasn't lying. Arnie's part is well written  he is not the Terminator that was incinerated at the end of T2, and neither does he follow that Terminator's character arc. I was hoping for more to be made of the 'is he good or bad' plot device that was promised to us, but I guess there wasn't really room. Of course, it was great to have Arnie  it wouldn't have been a Terminator movie without him  but at times I felt he was playing the part for laughs, which felt wrong. Even though some of his lines were genuinely funny, I thought that Mostow should have resisted the temptation and kept the tone darker.
Naturally, there will be die-hards who will refuse to accept that a new Terminator movie could possibly be anything other than sacrilege, but I would suggest they go see it anyway. The sooner they see it, the sooner the nostalgia will set in and they can feel about T3 the same as they feel about T2 and T1. (Let's face it, T2 was a completely different movie to T1, but we still love it, so give T3 a chance.) Jonathon Mostow has brought the series to a point that if T4 were made, it wouldn't even need a leading role for Arnie, provided that Stahl and Danes are available. (He would have to appear at some point, but as a bad guy. His statement to Connor 'We'll meet again' wasn't so much a promise as a future historical fact  if you go see T3 you'll see what I mean about half way through.)
And there should be a T4. Mostow has proved that even without Cameron, this is a franchise worth building on. (And let's face it, Jimbo seems to have lost his way lately anyway.) There is still a huge story to tell.