Not sure why they told us this story

Rating: 6/10 (29 July 2003)

I came out of this movie with mixed emotions. The special effects were good, the chases were tense and the backstory of this new Terminator's relationship with John Connor was clever. Still, there was a fatalism throughout the movie that reduced the impact of the ending. The movie essentially says to us, "This is the way things will turn out...things are turning out as I predicted...I was right, this was the way turned out." Not only does this ruin suspense, but it also means that whenever someone dies in the picture, instead of pitying the dead, we shrug and move on. It alienates us from the movie and its characters when we want to feel close, and by the end my reaction to the story paralleled that of the kid in The Princess Bride who screams, "Jeez, grampa, why did you want to tell me this story!"