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| Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) |
Okay, well, where to begin? Well, I think I'd better address something that I've heard a lot about this movie and a lot of other sequels: that it didn't need to exist. This movie was released 12 years after Terminator 2, and a lot of people, including myself, thought that movie's ending was a fitting end of the story, so you could make the argument that this film didn't need to be made. But, to that, I'd say this: no movie needs to exist. Not really. I'm glad certain movies do exist, but when it comes down to it, we don't need films like we need food or oxygen. But films still get made, despite the fact that they don't need to exist, because we like being entertained by them. This argument comes up a lot when sequels to well-loved franchises get made, especially years down the line. And, look, did Terminator 3 desperately need to be made? No, of course not. Does its existence ruin the Terminator movies that came before it? Again, of course not. Just because this film didn't quite reach the heights of its predecessors doesn't mean it was a steaming pile of trash. I've said several times that I don't envy anyone tasked with producing a sequel like this, since if you're off by even the slightest margin, people go crazy since it wasn't as good as perfection. I keep seeing it in the new Star Wars trilogy, with people losing their minds criticising it because the original trilogy was 'perfect', with their nostalgia blinding them to the fact that the original Star Wars trilogy has just as many problems as the new movies, and any movies, have. But that's a topic for another review. Just know that being slightly worse than a 10/10 movie doesn't make you a 0/10 movie. Yes, sequels deserve to be judged somewhat based on the originals their based on, but more than anything, they need to be judged on their own as well. It can be difficult to find that balance sometimes, but it is important to do so, otherwise you're completely dismissing something for an in-proportionate reason.
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| Arnold Schwarzenegger as T-850 |
And, honestly, there's a lot here to really love. Of course, there's Arnie's performance, and he's just as great as he always has been, although I do have one issue here, and it's that his one-liners aren't nearly as impressive or memorable as they were in previous films. 'Talk to the hand' is just not as menacing as 'I'll be back', among others, but a lot of his oner-liners in this one do still work. I guess it's just that 'Talk to the hand' was kind of disappointing. Nick Stahl played a very impressive John Connor, and I really like the position that John's at in this film. He's accepted his role in the upcoming war against the machines, but that doesn't mean he has to like it, and the character progression he takes throughout this movie is honestly interesting to watch, especially opposite Claire Danes as Kate Brewster, who also did a great job here. The reasons I liked Brewster so much are the same reasons I loved Sarah Connor in the original Terminator: she's a regular person reacting to these situations they way regular people would... for the most part. She accepted certain things way too quickly, and I don't mean stuff about the future or her role in it. I mean that he fiancee gets killed and it takes her less than a day to move on. That's a little too sudden, and even in the face of armageddon, this love arc was a little rushed, even though I do think the two characters had great chemistry together.
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| Nick Stahl as John Connor |
The action is just as good as Terminator films have always been. The car chase at the end of the first act was downright amazing, and I postponed my inevitable trip to the bathroom since I didn't want to stop midway through the scene; it was that amazing. The showdowns in the military bases were also fantastic, and it's through these scenes that we got to see the amazing CGI at work here, specifically with the T-X. There were only a couple of moments where the CG didn't land, but considering the quantity of CGI used here, that in and of itself is impressive. I've also got no other point I can segue into this, so I'll just throw it in here: the last 15 minutes were among the most poignant and, weirdly, comfortingly depressing moments of the Terminator series so far, which is particularly impressive given how ballsy the move was. I certainly didn't see it coming. Very nice. My only real problem with the action overall was that they had a perfectly good premise laid out for them and they didn't take it. You have a Terminator that can control other machines, and yet the sequence we were all waiting for (you know the one, it's obvious) lasts less than 2 minutes. They could have done so much with that concept, and yet they just toss it aside. Come on, it would have been amazing if they'd just gone down that route, but they ended it after 2 minutes in a really rather disappointing way. I'll say no more about it here, if you're still unsure which sequence I'm talking about just ask me directly.
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| Claire Danes as Kate Brewster |
And, speaking of which, let's just address the film's biggest flaw: the T-X. Look, don't get me wrong, I'm all for a female Terminator, that's fine. In fact, it's refreshing how little they draw attention to the fact that the new Terminator is a woman (beyond that one obvious scene). They could have played it like a Basic Instinct thing, but they didn't, and I'm glad they didn't go that route. It's just that she feels like the weakest of the Terminators so far. Not that she isn't menacing, because she certainly is, but a lot of her moves seem... off. Like, she has a whole lot of weapons built into her, but instead she spends the majority of the first act wasting her victims with a gun she stole from a cop. You have an arm that fires lasers, lead with that! It also feels like she has the least impact on the story itself. In the other two movies, even when they weren't onscreen, the Terminators' presence was always felt. You knew they were always out there, relentlessly stalking their target. Here, the T-X takes so many random detours that I never felt as though she was always right behind our heroes. Finally, the big finale with her didn't feel as powerful as the final fights against the previous Terminators. Those were long, drawn-out struggles as our heroes exhausted the last of their strength to claw their way out of the clutches of their pursuers. Here, it's a 3-minute scene in which the 'strongest' Terminator yet is easily subdued by an inferior model. Certainly not the juggernaut she was built up to be. Still functional in the role, and a certain threat, but maybe not quite as powerful as I would have liked her to be.
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| Kristanna Loken as T-X |
So, where does that leave us? Well, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) is a great action movie, just not a great Terminator movie, but still a good one. I'm certainly intrigued by where this franchise is heading, though based on what I've heard, it's not looking good. Then again, based on what I'd heard, this movie wasn't supposed to be good, and yet, here we are. The future is not clear. How appropriate. 7.5/10.
Tomorrow: Alien: Resurrection.
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