when atmosphere is lost for mindless action

Rating: Null/10 (1 August 2003)

T3 had a great potential, but the hopes were just too high. After T2, doing something better would have been a titan's work. Mostow goes for the heavy action style, long car chase, big explosions...but somehow forgets to deliver the kind of atmosphere Cameron could. I do not revere Cameron as a god, but he was better at it than Mostow is.
The evil Terminatrix is somehow silly. She has part liquid metal-part solid metal frame, and therefore can be broken just like old Arnie, but unlike THE Patrick's T1000. The machines must have employed a very uncompetent R&D cyborg. Loken is OK, but does not give this "run as fast as you can I will catch you one day" attitude Robert Patrick or Arnie could give us. On the first moments of the action TX is already temporary down and needs to recompose itself...after having been run over by a car and burried under some blocks of concrete...tsktsktsk. Oh yes, and she can control other machines. Other cyborgs, robots or computers, I accept, but cars, trucks and vans, that's silly.
Although I laughed at the jokes, they contributed to the loss of atmosphere. They were just too many, and too silly sometimes.
If you accept that the story didn't end with T2 (I mean, even if I blew up Microsoft headquarters, put Bill Gates on a box full of C4, we would still see our PC invaded by Windows version 2024, right?), then T3 doesn't make too much nonsense. All they did in T2 was to delay Judgment Day. Ok, I accept that gladly. The end of T3 was quite nicely done and refreshingly surprising, before giving us a "see you in T4" final ending.
An average to good action movie, but you have to forget how good was the first 2 movies. In fact, it could almost be a parody.
I think Arnie was what put this movie so high in the hype. Arnie IS still in good shape after all. Shame the movie was not up to the quality of Arnie's last action!