Let’s just say it makes nice background while working at home.
T3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
| Overall |
 | Story |
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| Production |
 | Acting |
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I’m a big fan of Terminator 2, so I shied away from this one while in the theaters, hearing tell it was a bit … disappointing.
And … it was. But only a bit.
Story: There’s not a huge amount new here. John Connor is a bit older. Despite what we saw at the end of T2 (alternate ending), John’s mom has died and he’s an “off the grid” wanderer, certain he’s going to be tracked down by The Machines.
Which, of course, he is. At which point we have (stop me if you’ve heard this one) John and a companion fleeing a super-duper hi-tech Terminator out to kill him, protected by a Schwarzenegger-class Terminator, and trying to get into a top secret installation to prevent Judgment Day from occurring.
Um … ho-hum. There are a few twists, but, really, it’s much the same story, except for the end — and end that falls a bit flat, as we go from “there is no fate but what we make” to “sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” There’s no “win,” just survival … and if the Terminator from the future fails its mission — the primary objective at least — it’s hard to say that the “good guys” win, either. Indeed, it’s arguable that the good guys are worse off than they would have been if they hadn’t succeeded
quite so well in the second movie, which is kind of odd.
Indeed, T3 in that respect resembles another film that followed a James Cameron blockbuster: Aliens 3.
Production: The fx are a bit better (CG, you know), the car chases are more spectactular, the baddie is badder (and a girl), the body count is higher, and … well, the whole thing feels a bit flatter, a lot less edgy (lacking the paranoid manic intensity of Linda Hamilton’s Sarah), and somehow smaller (the exteriors are more focused, the interiors less ambitious).
The music? Huh. I guess there was music. Didn’t really notice, until the end titles rehash of the Terminator tune.
The fx, as I said, are technically spiffier (esp. when used to mix with real life, as in some of the initial car chase action), and they’re effectively used, but just not as exciting as the T1000 liquid metal of T2 — perhaps because there’s not much here we hadn’t seen in the dozen years since the ’91 predecessor.
Acting: Nick Stahl’s John Connor is a worthy successor to Edward Furlong — only more whiny and less ballsy. Claire Danes starts off shrill, ends up decent enough. Kristianna Loken as the T-X has less personality (in a bad way) than Robert Patrick as the T-1000. Schwarzenegger is just going through the motions. And everyone else … is just showing up for the paycheck.
Overall: T3 isn’t a bad movie. It’s an amusing romp, something to have fun with over a few beers. Alas, it’s main failing is the degree to which it falls short of its predecessor, somewhat tiredly going through the motions and tarnishing one of the spiffier future histories just a bit. Ah, well — not going to lose any sleep over it.
Oh, where to begin… T1 & T2 were great, wonderful stories, well done. T3 was a travesty. It lost me on so many levels.
Movies break for lots of reasons and one of my pet peeves is unnecessary wrongness. Yes, time-travel is problematic but it is a literary device necessary to the story. Same for liquid metal (and there are early research projects that might make it a reality some day). Otherwise things worked pretty realistically in the first two.
Terminachick exerts mysterious force on car, car drives itself (but there are no steering or throttle servos in cars.) Arnold crashes through many buildings at the end of a crane, but his leather jacket isn’t torn (and the fire truck doesn’t jackknife). Terminachick punches Arnold, he flies backward through a cinder-block wall. She stands calmly, unmoved. It just goes on and on. Apparently Isaac Newton was on extended vacation for this one.
And then the lame acting, story, directing, etc. Bleah.
It was, in that way, a lot more cartoony.
I think, had T2 never come out (i.e., we hopped straight to T3), the latter would seem stronger. I mean, T1 was … not terribly sophisticated (“Look out — it’s the Monster That Cannot Be Stopped!”). It’s primarily the example of T2 that points out the various absurdities in T3 — esp. since the two of them plot in such a close arc to each other.
T1 was not about “the monster that cannot be stopped” – it was about an ordinary person deeply changed. Hamilton, not Arnold, was the star.
That element is certainly there — but I think a lot of that is backfilled perception, in light of T2. The movie is primarily no different from any other horror flick of the 70s-80s — the relentless killer who keeps coming back … finally, ultimately, barely defeated (for now) by the protagonist. Hamilton’s Sarah Connor may be a bit better (and show more growth) than the standard horror flick teen, but only just.
People laugh at me when I say it, but T1 was one of the greatest romances every filmed. “I came through time for you, Sarah ….”
No, I can see that.
No, I can totally see that.
Only a little more growth? At the beginning of T1, she was a waitress leading a feckless life with her roomies and riding a vespa to her crummy job. Only a few months later she’s repurposed her entire life and begun preparations to survive armageddon. Yes, we find out more from young John Conner (initials no accident?) in T2 but there’s plenty there to suggest what’s different.
I agree with Terry about the romantic angle too. T1 is a great story even if there’d been no sequels. I will grant the production values were not high but they told the story well enough.
My sons laugh at me when I defend this movie but luckily I don’t think they read your weblog so I’ll probably escape their mocking this time. Another movie I liked a lot that was way too schmaltzy for them was Contact.