Lives up to the series, lacks suspense...

Rating: 7/10 (5 July 2003)

"T3: Rise of the Machines" had some serious living up to do as far as the first two films are concerned. In my opinion it doesn't disgrace the series, especially in terms of pure action. However, it is the weakest of the three in terms of both story and sci-fi.
The film, like many other movies with a lot of "over-the-top" action, suffers from a curious lack of suspense. Not that suspense was completely absent, but it takes a strong, coherent story along with powerful acting and believable plot to support a film with this much 'in your face' action, and the film doesn't have it. Ultimately, nothing much happens, and none of the characters are terribly likeable. I didn't care too much about what happened to them, in stark contrast to the first two films -- I never felt they were really in any serious danger. The humor was nice (it really was funny) but always seemed to come at a time when we should have been concerned for the fate of the characters instead.
** A few spoilers **
I also have issues with the Terminatrix, who displayed a lot of unevenness as far as her abilities go... in the scenes just before she's terminated (am I really spoiling anything?) she looks a lot like an advanced T-101, with parts hanging off everywhere -- yet in the rest of the film it's suggested she's at least as advanced as the "bad" terminator in T2, which was made of liquid metal. In terms of Skynet, the idea that the system has no central core and is distributed "over the Internet" is both good and bad.. it makes sense to us, yet it's cliched and silly too (and science-wise, downright impossible).
Overall, I enjoyed the movie greatly. I was greatly entertained by the action, yet afterward the film just felt kind of hollow and vanished from my mind rather quickly... nothing all too memorable ever happened, and I really feel this movie is ultimately another forgettable summer actioner that will be OK released as a series of DVD's with the first two films, but just doesn't stand up alone as a terribly worthy addition to the Terminator franchise.
By far the weakest of the Terminator series (except for the action, which was great, maybe too great)... 7/10.