Oh god, now I think I've done it...

...I've seen the best and worst movie of the summer on the same day. Ok, it was a big theatre goin' day for me, starting with Finding Nemo. Wow, that was an awesome film. Just as in Monster's Inc., I wonder why I didn't see this thing opening night. This film looked beautiful and was wildly entertaining. The CGI continues to make me wonder why the CG in Star Wars looks so terrible...?

On to Terminator 3. You know, you never realize how much something means to you until someone takes it away. Speaking of Star Wars, I probably wouldn't care half as much as I do if Lucas hadn't destroyed the original versions of the films and bombarded us with really stupid prequels. Terminator 3 is a success in this rather misguided sort of way by making me realize I actually care about Terminator 1 and 2, and that the second one is actually a pretty good action movie (before Terminator 3 I utterly discounted it!) Wow! Of course, I've always liked the first Terminator, but you don't realize how much you genuinely care until...well until someone makes Terminator 3 and you feel like someone has violated your 80's oriented youth!

So let me tell you about the 'travesty' that is Terminator 3 if you don't mind some pretty massive spoilers (can someone actually ruin a bad movie?) EVERY action sequence you'll see in this film, you've already seen in Terminator 2, except one segment where Arnold manages to keep John Conner alive by carrying him in a coffin (obviously bullet proof.) I mention this one scene because it is both utterly ineffective as an action scene, but the movie had plodded along at such a sluggish pace that I was really expecting Arnold to just sling the coffin on his back and go all Gungrave or even Django on everyone. Speaking of which, Sarah Conner is conveniently dead in this movie (so is James Cameron), and it seems Sarah Conner's dying wish was to have her coffin loaded with machine guns, so there really is a brief Django moment going on. Similarities end with the coffin however, since Django isn't a comedy.

The logic of the film is something like this. Judgment day got pushed back because of the events of Terminator 2, but in the end, the nukes are going to fall, regardless. The mechanism by which this happens is completely unclear. Terminator 3's big revelation is, on second thought, utterly nonsensical. Apparently Skynet is no longer a big machine but a virus or AI that has incorporated itself in all software. So basically, as long as people use computers, software, the internet, etc., the threat of Skynet is always there. I'm not sure what happened to the premise that a computer chip from the future created the hardware necessary for the rise of the robots, but then again, this film has so many holes in it, it probably isn't worth thinking too hard about it.

OK, so problems really begin to arise when the film reveals that the Arnold Terminator (of course, there is a bad terminator too, but it is SO much exactly the same thing from Terminator 2 I hardly even feel it is worth mentioning) knows that Skynet is software, but never actually feels like clearing up the point to John Conner (Nick Stahl) and future bride, Kate Brewster (Claire Danes). Even worse, Brewster's war general dad who is well aware that Skynet is software, also doesn't bother telling our heroes. The problem is, unlike the great revelations of other movies that truly need to be hidden from the audience, this one completely invalidates the end of the film. Arnold simply could have spilled the beans and the movie could have ended half an hour earlier.

That aside, there are many other problems with the film. For one, the soundtrack is missing. Remember the terminator main theme? It sure sounds nice in the end credits; unfortunately, that is its only appearance in the movie. In general, everything that ever produced a sense of mood or dread in the other Terminator films is now completely absent. Arnold is a straight up parody of himself, the actors are as unconvincing as you might imagine. When Kate can't believe that John is the savior of humanity, I felt myself siding more with her than I probably should have. In the end, the tenants of the movie could not suspend my disbelief. The premise was ridiculous, the threat pretty unthreatening, and execution about as dull as a direct to home video thriller.

Kate was never actually convinced until she saw the 'bad' Terminator coming after her with some weird modified laser arm. Well who can blame here? Lacking all the passion of the first two films, or the intensity of Linda Hamilton or Michael Biehn, Nick Stahl's tired performance wouldn't convince a group of second graders.

Speaking of old and tired, I guess Arnold's performance is worth mentioning. I mean, there's something to be said for his willingness to recap a role once every decade, making the poor cyborg look a bit more frayed around the edges every time. But I'm really hard pressed to say whether or not the role genuinely works. It could just be that I've come to accept Arnold as the Terminator, even if he looks like he looks more like a senator than a killer robot from the future.

Other flaws that were humorous though not really detrimental to the film: There is a fantastic MST3K moment when one car gets the crap smashed out of it, then gets better in the next scene. Also, despite being thrown through walls, buildings, and everything else, Arnold's leather jacket never gets dirty, scratched or torn. In fact, it starts looking better as the film progresses.

I suppose I should wrap this up somehow: Ok, so the audience laughed a LOT at this movie and not at the right places. Sure, watching the terminators push each other's heads into toilets is funny, but that isn't what people were laughing at. It was the bad acting, the apathetic story-line, the cloned action sequences, the lame-ass idea for the new terminator. I certainly wasn't the only critic in the audience. And just as I left the theatre, the guys ahead of me said my favorite line...'more like a lampoon of the first two...' And that, readers, is what Terminator 3 is all about.

Thanks for the review Chris! Who knew you were such an Arnie junky that you would end up reviewing so many of his movies? If you would like to review a movie that doesn't star Arnold Schwarzenegger drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com. If you're done altering the future or the past or the old future or whatever head on back to either the Third Movie or Main page.