exploitation of the theme and effects, not good.

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2003)

i am sorry to report that t3 - rise of the machines, which could have been a truly great movie, nothing missing in terms of plot possiblities in that concept, fell totally flat, in fact melting into the ground in implementation.
most of the scenes were some kind of spoofy sub-par rehashes of previous scenes in the series, in terms of the continuity. the only think different was that the action was so over the top it was almost funny. for one example there is a scene when the new t-x liquid metal terminatrix as she is being called, is driving a huge truck, which Arnold manages to get a grip on. The truck is like a ladder truck, so the terminatrix moves the ladder out to hit everyting it her path to knock the good terminator off. When it hits a building, instead of wrecking the ladder, and bending it all around, the ladder goes through everything in its path, and does not slow down or twist the truck. it is just ridiculous. it takes so long to explain who how absurd this movie is, i just cannot do it.
onward now to the characters. arnold is the same terminator, though how he plays this without crying at what they have done to the legacy of this series is beyond me. the kid who played john connor was like a weaselly homeless guy, i suppose to give the loser teenage boys in the audience some hope or something. even this could have been used creatively, as some sort of play on how things can get twisted and goofed up, but that is way above the level of this movie.
the new terminatrix, seems to me like a terrible part. she is supposed to be more advanced and more human-like to root out humans in the future that could detect the older clunky terminators, but they are clueless about writing her part. She is this very sleep flawless beautiful women, and her programming seems to be to create as huge a disaster as possible for the cameras. I still remember being chilled as the first terminator movie used its smarts to track down sarah connor in terminator. i felt no suspence or tension with the terminatrix, just waiting to see how diverge from a good story to an exploitative one.
finally, the story is boring, predictable and does not draw one in in the least. after my initial understanding that this was a ripopff movie, i just stayed because i felt i had to, and to get my money's worth. i have the other two of the series on dvd, but i would never consider this one, and would warn everyone away in hopes of sending the studios a message that we do not like being ripped-off.