A pale shadow of its former self

Rating: Null/10 (9 July 2003)

I saw this immediately after seeing `28 Days Later' for the second time. This caused me to miss the first ten minutes or so.
I didn't feel that I'd missed anything that mattered and there is no way that I'll be seeing this movie a second time. It's competent enough but I actually felt bored throughout it. To me it seemed that its only purpose was to separate the weekend audience from its money. I know it'll do this efficiently.
But after the James Cameron directed T1 and T2, this was just a pale shadow of its former self. Arnie seemed to sleepwalk through the movie, Robert Patrick's T2 exuded menace whereas Kristanna Loken's T3 didn't - to me, anyway. Also T1 and T2 had some ideas and good dialogue to offer up together with those great action scenes which complemented the plot. This had a dumbed-down dialogue and the ideas-free plot - such as it was - was just there to move us from one lackluster action scene to the next.
To compare it to a couple of not dissimilar contemporary movies:
I've seen some reports that put the crane chase scene up there with the highway chase scene in `The Matrix Reloaded'. They've got to be joking.
`Hulk' had its problems with its portrayal of an out-of-control military but its characterization was light years ahead of the cardboard cutouts here.