Terminator 3 - Rise Of The Machines DVD > Reviews > Well, it's no T2...

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Good
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Outstanding
Soundtrack	Unmemorable

Advantages:	A solid summer action movie .
Disadvantages:	Not as good as the previous films .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Price (from BlackStar):
DVD ("vanilla," pre-order): £16.99

Terminator 3 was always going to be a risky venture. Without the man who created the Terminator universe, director James Cameron, the producers turned to action director Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown, U-571), who’s crafted a solid action thriller using the characters and situations from the earlier films. Taken in isolation, this is one of the better action films released this summer, certainly superior to the likes of Hulk and Charlie’s Angels 2. However, in comparison to the other Terminator films, this is far and away the weakest of the three.

The plot's much the same as the previous two entries in the series; a Terminator cyborg is sent back in time from a future war against the machines to assassinate the leader of the human resistance. The human resistance sends back their own bodyguard, in this case a Terminator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Chases and sundry explosions ensue.

The focus of everyone’s attention is, of course, Arnie himself. There are a few more wrinkles, but overall, the guy’s in very good shape and comfortably slips into his signature role. However, the Terminator character in this movie is a little unsatisfying; in the first film, he was a single-minded killing machine, in the second, he develops into a surrogate father-figure, eventually coming to an understanding of human emotions and values. The new model, however, performs the protector role with the single-minded determination of the Terminator from the first film. There’s no emotional development for the character, which robs his eventual act of self-sacrifice of any resonance. Where the last T-800 understood the meaning of sacrifice, this model is just going through the motions, with mechanical dedication to duty. The villain's ability to take control of other machines provides an interesting opportunity for Arnie to play the "bad-guy" Terminator from the first film; however, this is only explored in one brief scene, and Schwarzenegger plays it in a very hackneyed "confused-robot" style ("Does...not...compute!"), rather than with the cold menace of the original Terminator.

A further problem comes from the character’s very iconic status. In these postmodern times, the film can’t resist taking a few digs at the Terminator’s persona (after arriving naked, he walks into a bar on Ladies’ Night, and nicks his traditional leather togs from a male stripper). In doing so, it not only devalues this character, but retroactively pokes fun at the previous two films. Apart from anything else, it sets a very uneven tone; the jokes ring particularly hollow in light of the film’s downbeat ending.

Model/Actress/Whatever Kristanna Loken, playing the evil T-X, is clearly channelling Robert Patrick’s T-1000 from the second film. The T-X is a souped-up model, with the liquid metal skin of the T-1000, and, an array of weapons tucked away like a Swiss Army knife in her forearm. This smacks of upping the ante over the previous films, and, like the continual gags at the expense of the Terminator, serves to devalue the threat of the previous villains. She’s a bit gimmicky, too; a female Terminator was kind of the obvious thing to do (and it’s been done before, in various spin-off media). However, to her credit, Loken adds enough character tics to make the T-X a character in her own right, rather than just a carbon copy of the T-1000. The T-X is a bit like a child in this respect; she has total disregard for the norms of society, a combination of innocence and the fact that she’s ridiculously powerful, and thus isn't bound by any restrictions. “I like your car,” she says to one character, and takes it. “I like your gun,” she says to another, and, sure enough, in the next scene she’s got the gun.

Nick Stahl (In the Bedroom) does a creditable turn as John Connor, playing him as a wide-eyed junkie (perhaps a veiled reference to the drugs problems that precluded the casting of the original John Connor, Eddie Furlong). In a weirdly Oedipal twist (go see my Terminator review for why), he also looks a lot like Michael Biehn, the actor who played Connor’s father in the first two films. He pretty much takes on the role of Kyle Reese, too; the human being who’s aware of the Terminators, and the future war. Clare Danes (Romeo + Juliet) takes on the first film’s Sarah Connor role; the ordinary person whose life is turned upside-down by the arrival of the Terminators. She doesn’t have a great deal to do beyond screaming and having the plot explained to her, but what she does, she does well.

Mostow’s film feels like Terminator-by-numbers for the first half; the Terminators arrive, hunt down their quarry, there’s a car chase, and Arnie has a gun battle with some cops. In the second half of the film, the plot takes an unexpected turn with the revelation that Judgement Day, the war against the machines, is imminent (rather than being years away, as in the other films). As a result, the film is paced very differently; the characters are battling against a deadline, as well as the Terminators. The pacing of the film seems a little bit off in the first half of the film, however. One of the best parts of the first film was seeing the Terminator and Reese seeking out clothes and weapons, and then hunting down Sarah Connor. The second film played up the tension, as the audience weren’t sure whether Arnie was the good guy or the villain. In T3, the audience know he’s playing the hero, and the film skips over the tension-building early sections, plunging straight into the action. It’s interesting to note that the film is aimed at a younger audience than the first two (judging by its classification); it seems as if the director’s sacrificing the pacing and character-building in an effort to satisfy the MTV-generation kids on a sugar rush in the audience. As a result, the plot trades on coincidence rather more than the other films; John Connor tries to rob a vet’s medicine cabinet, and she just happens to be a childhood acquaintance (and her dad just happens to be the bloke in charge of developing the Skynet AI which starts the war against humanity). The T-X arrives to assassinate her, and by a stroke of luck finds John Connor, so decides to go after him instead.

Mostow’s film isn’t as thematically rich as Cameron’s; the first two films were a study of the role of technology in society, and an exploration of the implications of time travel. This film doesn’t really delve into those questions to the same extent, although one particularly good moment (in which it’s revealed exactly why Arnie’s Terminator happens to look like the other two), touches on both issues. That made me sit up and take notice, but unfortunately it wasn’t really followed up on, though there’s potential to return to it in the inevitable Terminator 4.

The film smacks of an attempt to construct a franchise; the ending leaves the film on a cliffhanger note, much like, say, X-Men or Spider-Man (although while T3 was a carbon copy of the earlier films, its ending precludes the next film treading the same path - and allows for T4 to be made without Schwarzenegger's participation, in the event that he gets too old, or becomes Governor of California). The problem stems from the fact that the other Terminator films formed a coherent, closed narrative; in the end of the second film, the nuclear war against the machines was averted. In trying to prise open the closed narrative of the earlier films, T3 firstly devalues the ending of the second (and, implicitly, the Terminator’s self-sacrifice), and secondly, in emphasising that “Judgment Day is inevitable,” makes a mockery of T2’s notion that “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves.”

One other niggling little problem; while Mostow takes pains to reference the visual aesthetic of the other films (the Termovision point-of view shots, the Stan Winston designs), he didn’t pay the same attention to the music. Brad Fiedel’s electronic music was as much a defining part of the first two films as Arnie, and here it’s replaced by a forgettable orchestral score by Marco Beltrami. Worse, the film highlights this unforgivable omission by reprising Fiedel’s famous Terminator theme in the end credits. More attentive viewers might also wonder – given that the apocalyptic future of T3 isn’t the same one featured in the first two films – why the Terminator looks exactly identical to the ones sent from the future seen in the other films.

A lot of my criticisms, it must be said, stem from considering the film in the light of the previous two entries in the series. Taken on its own, T3 is an entertaining action film, better than the usual summer fare. When examined in the context of the series, however, its weaknesses are highlighted. In fairness, though, Mostow continually references the first two entries in the film, from the very opening shot, which reprises the final shot of T2, to the Stan Winston robot designs, to the crowd-pleasing appearance by Earl Boen’s Dr. Silberman. In a way, he’s inviting it on himself; Mostow may be a good director, but he’s no Jim Cameron.

One final note: since the film is reaching the end of its first run in cinemas, anyone reading this is likely to be considering buying the DVD of the film. Mostow’s plan is to release a “vanilla” DVD, with few extras, in time for Christmas 2003. However, a more impressive “Ultimate Edition” of the film is being put together for a later DVD release; my advice is to hold out for that version.