Not so much an Epic!

Rating: Null/10 (9 April 2004)

Just to think what Terminator 3 could have been. It's a good film but it's not the epic that I wanted and not the epic we expected. When looking back at the first two Terminator's the story for The Rise of the Machines is there for the taking and could have been the best 3rd film of a trilogy ever to be made. What was the first problem was Jonathan Mostow. He has made good films in the past and is a good director but to put the helm in his hands to make a film that had to be better than one of the greatest sequels ever made was very risky and extremely stupid. Only one man could have made T3 the epic it deserved to be and that's James Cameron.

I was really surprised he even let the movie go ahead because he must have some say over it as he created the characters in the first place. As far as Arnie goes he was as good as ever in his return as The Terminator. I thought the TX played by Kristanna Loken was alright but she didn't put the fear in you like Arnie did with the original and Robert Patrick did with T2. I think they now know that putting a girl in as the new terminator was a different and interesting idea but when watching it back now it looks all a bit silly really and stupid from the word off. I am not being sexist saying that no girl could be a bad ass TX or something, just not her. The most positive thing to come out of the film is Nick Stahl as John Connor. He is brilliant as Connor and makes you thank Mostow for not keeping with Edward Furlong in the first place.
What I didn't like was how long it was on for. For a film about a war between the machines and man you have to lengthen the story and it's characters. If this was a warm up film to what is about to come then that is fair enough but I can't see how another Terminator will get made now Arnie is the Governor of California and his run will go well into his early sixties. It all depends on whether he is feeling like Harrison Ford and ready to jump into any film whether it will be action or drama. If T3 is the closure of the story then it ends on a sour point. I thought of many other ways they can carry it on without him but whether that would work remains to be seen.
Would they continue the story without Arnie and the more important thing would it be any good? Even though Arnie is not the best of actors anyway his presence in the trilogy is one of the most important in any film ever made and that is important. The way T3 ends is one of the most original and emotional endings I have ever seen and the more I think about the more it makes you look at how different Mostow and Cameron are as directors because I don't think Cameron would have ended it that way. That's where I love what Mostow did with the end of T3 but I still think it should be James Cameron behind the camera. If they both written the film and Cameron directed then we would have had the best of both worlds but it's not like that and future is still not written as far as The Terminator goes and neither is anything else.