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TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)
7 years between sequels doesn't seem so long now, does it? Terminator 3 is the story of Katherine Brewster, who has the worst day ever. Her fiancée is murdered, she's shot at and chased by a kill-bot, then she's told that the world's going to end in a matter of hours, then she has her dad murdered in front of her by the kill-bot, then she's shot at and chased by more kill-bots, and as if all that wasn't enough, she's told she has to marry the homeless guy who passed out trying to burglarize her veterinary office. Kate, you poor girl. That homeless guy is John Connor, now in his early 20's and played by Nick Stahl. (John, you poor boy - that was one of the most painful girl-from-school-walks-in-on-your-lame-ass-job scenes I've seen) Despite having apparently altered fate by shutting down Skynet in T2, John is still scared, and doesn't know why, so he's been living "off the grid". But it turns out there's a good reason for his fear because, yet again, two terminators have been sent back in time - the latest model sent back to kill him (and a bunch of other people), and a clunky old Schwarzennegger model reprogrammed to protect him and Brewster (played by Claire Danes). The new terminator, the T-X (referred to once as a "terminatrix") is played by Kristana Loken - which is I guess a reasonable continuance on a path set by going from an Austrian beefcake to a lean, anonymous-looking dude. Might as well have a sexy chick this time. Next time, I expect a nerdy 12-year-old boy. I still don't know why this terminator (or the last one) was able to travel through time, not being composed of or covered in living tissue - this one has a metal endoskeleton (with a right arm that can fire all sorts of anti-terminator weaponry) and it's covered in Liquid Terminator like the T-1000, giving her the best of both worlds up to a point. She can also inject nanobots into machines of certain sophistication to bring them under her complete control. Thus, the chase begins anew - without James Cameron. When a franchise takes an unusually long time between entries, sometimes we're just pleased that the latest, longest-awaited entry didn't suck. Live Free Or Die Hard and Rocky Balboa for example. Terminator 3 is pretty much like that - it certainly doesn't suck, and it's a faithful re-creation of much of what made the first two movies work (particularly in the large-scale vehicular mayhem department), but the absence of much of a human element prevents it from getting anywhere near those two film's vaunted company. A PG-13 rating isn't a problem here - there's a fair bit of cold-blooded murder for a while, and T2 wasn't exactly a hard R. It's just that John and Kate are battered around a plot entirely dictated by what they are Meant To Do, and most of their dialogue and decisions are dictated by these revelations, which is close enough to Prophecy Of The Chosen One type shit for me. Note a particularly thankless scene were they have to react to being told the world's going to end, like, this afternoon. How much "What?!?" and "Oh my god!!!" is too much for one movie? "Judgment day is inevitable" we are told, and given the reason for only at the end of the film. The first two Terminator movies made a point of mentioning that there is no fate, and seemed to use the device of time travel to demonstrate that. It would appear that T3 attempts to refute such a notion, but I find myself wondering whether, despite the characters' protestations to the contrary, the first two movies followed in those no-fate footsteps anyway. In those films, we saw how tampering with the past from the future created that future which otherwise wasn't on its way. No chip, no Skynet - no Kyle, no John. If that's not fate, I don't know what is. Sarah Connor is missed - we learn that she died of leukemia sometime between T2 and T3, which is an unsatisfying write-off. Her only legacy in this movie is that she left a big stash of machine guns and rocket launchers. Sarah was great in T2 because she dictated the plot - she didn't let it drag her along, she's the one who took responsibility for her and her son's fates. Here, Arnold's terminator seems to be the one in charge of two disbelieving wards. Danes' eyes do a lot of great, expressive work but there's very little for her to do beyond react to one bit of absolutely terrible news after another, though she does demonstrate a certain amount of handiness with weapons which make for some bursts of unexpected, entertaining badassery. Stahl's a good actor, who might look very little like Edward Furlong, but he also has little to work with here, saying lines like "Oh my god, it's the machines! They're starting to take over!" and slowing down the T-X by turning on a particle accelerator. If I walked into a room with a particle accelerator in it, I'm not sure I'd be able to even point to the particle accelerator, much less know how to turn it on. Arnold himself still looks to be in good shape to play a terminator, but he endures a few attempts at levity that are just lame and degrading for what was once a state-of-the-art killbot (the Elton John sunglasses and "Talk to the hand" in particular). He does have a few funny moments where he employs his limited knowledge of human psychology, but while he doesn't have to learn about love or anything like that here, he does have a bit of an awkward scene where he deals with conflicting programming by punching the shit out of a car hood. Loken is fine as the terminatrix - like the T-1000, the T-X is a skilled actor, and doesn't seem like a kill-bot when it's not kill-botting. In perhaps a bit of programming advancement from the T-1000 (or maybe it's just my imagination), the T-X betrays a bit of a cold contempt for organic life, and seems pleased to be given a chance to demonstrate her superiority to an obsolete model. All this, for the purposes of this movie anyway, are to set up outrageous action sequences where cranes are driven through buildings, helicopters are flown through doors, and terminators bash, cut and blast their way through anything that isn't a major cast member. Mind what I said about the vehicular mayhem - a car/truck/crane-chase early in the movie makes the one at the end of The Matrix Reloaded seem pretty innocuous. As a high-octane smashy-smashy with a minimum of CGI, this chase might be the best thing going right now. Otherwise, it's getting harder and harder to show me something, FX-wise, I haven't seen before. Terminator 2 showed us lots of things we hadn't seen before, but then, it was 1991. Many of those effects are still very impressive today, but the bar has been raised enough times since then that most of us can sit through movies loaded with effects that, to untrained eyes, have been state of the art for years and years and we're all, like, yawn. Terminator 3 didn't have to re-invent the FX movie like Terminator 2 did, but I would've appreciated something a little more forward-thinking about what an FX movie can do, beyond seeing two kill-bots beating the shit out of each other with urinals (and later, helicopters). If there's ever a Terminator 4, I fully expect the two Terminators to pick up the moon, and bash each other with the moon. (c) Brian J. Wright 2008 BACK TO THE T's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |