Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Review
by Josh Gilchrist (joshgilch AT aol DOT com)July 4th, 2003
Josh Gilchrist's review of "Terminator 3" * 1/2 out of ****
What if movies meant more to society? Of course they're just sources of escapism, but what if films truly had an impact on our decisions in life? If this were true, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" might be considered just as damaging to Arnold Schwarzenegger's impending political career as Watergate was for Nixon's.
When director James Cameron sold off the rights to this franchise, he committed a sin. To let someone else, director Jonathan Mostow, bastardize everything that the first two "Terminator" films stood for is inexcusable. Where's the relationship aspect of the film? Those helped move the previous films along so they wouldn't just be action blowouts. The only relationship here is one between John Conner (Nick Stahl) and his future wife Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) that's full of dialogue painful to the ear. Where's Linda Hamilton, certainly the strongest performer in the last two films? Why is the film not as dark and prophetic as the previous films? And, finally, why do the characters in "Terminator 3" look like they all shop at The Gap?
These are all questions that should have been addressed. Instead, $150 million was shoved into a film with barely any intelligence. There were some interesting elements within the film, such as a more complex John Conner, now a drifter trying to come to terms with his role in the world. Schwarzenegger is back as a new version of the Terminator sent back to help protect John. There was also a chance for an ingenious concept of having a female cyborg as the new villain. We are introduced to the creator of Skynet, the supercomputer which will eventually cause the demise of the human race. In a stroke of pathetic movie coincidence, the creator just happens to be Kate's father. He's the trio's only hope for saving the future since he holds the key to unleashing the machines.
But, with a lifeless script and bad casting, these ideas are squandered. The character of John Conner just doesn't seem right in this film. It's ten years after he was saved from the last Terminator assassin, and he's still the world's only hope to save the human race from a future war with the machines. The biggest flaw has nothing to do with the character but with Stahl himself. He comes across as a pretty-boy wimp instead of the macho, rough person he should be. You don't believe this gruff act for a minute.
The female Terminator (Kristanna Loken) is also nonconvincing. Instead of going after an actress who would be intimidating, they cast former model Loken. There's no menace in this character, only a deadpan look. She looks more like she is mad about getting a bad manicure than trying to kill the future leader of the human resistance. Now, the terminator should be expressionless. But, look at the past Terminators, played by Schwarzenegger in the original and Robert Patrick in the sequel, and they had a mixture of charisma and even humor. Loken has the blank expressions down but it reminded me of a runway model instead of a machine struggling in a human world.
Schwarzenegger is the key to the film though. Surprisingly, the actor seems to have lost his touch with playing the character. He makes the character even more wooden, much more lifeless than the Terminator he portrayed in the second film. The old Terminator was interesting because, although not human, he was able to connect with the characters. One of my favorite scenes from "Terminator 2" had a young John Conner crying and our cyborg hero wondering why he does this. Now, the character isn't even interested enough to ask these such questions, and is therefore not intriguing.
The main area that director Mostow botches up here is he didn't inject any form of suspense. This is strange since his previous films, "Breakdown" and "U-571" were films that used suspense to help correct some of those films cliched action elements. All we get with "Terminator 3" is the cliched action, which is enough to titillate the minds of those with short attention spans.
The final verdict, this is one of the most unnecessary sequels I can recall. The first film set up the story, the second film wrapped everything up nicely. This time around it's about nothing more than the box office dollar.
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