T3 - weakest of the trilogy but worth seeing

Rating: Null/10 (16 December 2003)

When I first saw the movie (big screen) I was disappointed 6/10 - admittedly T2 was a hard act to follow. However on seeing the movie again at home it made more sense and I enjoyed it more 7/10 (Terminator 8, T2 9-10).
Yeah so it is a CGI and action fest. But care has gone into trying to link the T3 to T and T2, especially John Conner's part in it. How does one come to an acceptance of a prophecy, that one is destined to be the Saviour Of The World? So one thing I thought was credibly done was how Connor (Nick Stahl) and Brewster (Claire Danes) came slowly, kicking & screaming to the realisation and acceptance of their pivotal roles in the future saving of humanity.
One major criticism to my mind is the mismatch between Connor and Brewster in apparent age. I suspect this was done in part to make them look like the oddest and unlikeliest of couples, but he looks like barely out of high school, while she looks like in her late 20s (not that I'd kick her out of bed..).
As for Arnie and Kristanna Loken (the T-X), well they are after all robots and in the movie unfortunately do not seem to have much character beyond that, contrasting sharply with T2 where Arnie achieves believable defacto father-figure status. In T3, the sense of the relentless pursuit of the T-1000 in T2 is missing, despite her embellished gizmos and supposedly superior mental abilities (little in evidence).
In retrospect T2 and T3 seem to be misnamed. The focus of T2 was the T-1000 itself, whereas T3 rushes to and culminates in Judgement Day. Rise of the Machines seems to only be in its most embryonic stage in T3, so the series is left open (I suppose) to a 4th movie where the machines do actually rise and are defeated, though with flagging interest in T3 and a known outcome in "T4" it might be a brave studio who risks it.