Beauty & The Beast

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 2009)

After Arnold Schwarzenegger destroyed the liquid metal T-1000 at the end of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day," the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then the monster box-office takings came in and it was decided that SkyNet was far from finished. In "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," those crafty old machines try a different tack. Brawn had its chance to kill Sarah and John Connor and blew it. This time SkyNet send back a villainous creation that will use feminine wiles; the T-X or Terminatrix.
The T-X is embodied in the luscious form of Kristanna Loken. Some people had problems with her performance, but she does okay and she's very easy on the eye. Her abilities are good too, she squeals like a fax machine to hack in to the L.A. school computer and track down John Connor and his future lieutenants, she can inflate her chest at will to get out of a traffic fine (and what woman wouldn't love THAT?) and she can go toe-to-toe with Arnold in a scrap (she even emasculates his power by grabbing his testicles which is Arnold's cue to deliver a puzzled expression before she hurls him through the air). She also has an arm that can turn into a laser gun/flamethrower.
Her nemesis is also sent back through time and it is our old friend/enemy Arnold Schwarzenegger as a seriously outclassed T-800. Arnie was 56 when he made this film and he had undergone heart valve replacement surgery, so his excellent physical conditioning is remarkable.
Arnold, as in the other Terminator movies, arrives back in our time naked. So he heads to the nearest venue to acquire clothes: a strip club. However, this sequence goes too far into comedy, having Arnold demand the clothes of an effeminate male stripper and having him wear silly sunglasses for cheap laughs (his "talk to the hand" catchphrase is sooo late-90s and was already out of date by 2003). Also the forced appearance of Doctor Silberman after the graveyard shootout is a laboured joke and a sop to the fans that doesn't really work.
Nick Stahl plays John Connor and he goes through the whole movie looking like he's about to wet his pants. He didn't have the range as an actor to do justice to the role of John Connor (and he was totally unconvincing as an old John Connor in the future war sequence!) What a pity Edward Furlong blew the gig with his drug problems. He was perfect casting for Connor and had a good rapport with Schwarzenegger on screen. Linda Hamilton is sorely missed too.
The special effects look slightly ropey because James Cameron isn't calling the shots and pushing for perfection on this one. He would never have accepted the shots of the Hunter-Killers in the future war sequence, they look like something out of a video game. The script also suffers because Cameron isn't involved. The Terminator came to him in a nightmare, so it is his vision he was following completely. He knew exactly how the Terminator universe should look and he really cared about the characters. Other directors in the Terminator series are really just hacks for hire, using the franchise to get a leg up they don't deserve.
There are good things about T3; the crane chase, the Terminator tricking John Connor and Kate Brewster into saving themselves and the apocalyptic ending as seen from space which is awesome and unexpected. The protagonists in the other Terminator movies always managed to avert Judgment Day and it was a shock for audiences to see the heroes fail and for the world to be destroyed.
The Terminator is such a good story that it would be hard to screw it up. Even Terminator Salvation had flashes of brilliance (only flashes mind!). "Terminator 3" looks better now than it did when it came out. Many prefer it to "Terminator Salvation" as it has things that movie doesn't; a real Arnold, time travel and street battles in a present-day setting. Essentially, it is the end of a trilogy that James Cameron started back in 1984 (Salvation would abandon the structure, main setting and noir look of Cameron's movies). It was also the beginning of the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting career before he became Governor of California.
The action sequences are the best thing about T3. Even though the special effects look a bit ropey and there is hardly any future war in this one, it's still a fast-paced, watchable movie.