Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Movie Title: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Official Website (it might still work): Terminator 3
Rating (out of 10): 6
Reviewed By: Michael Stevens
Buy the: Video/DVD \| Soundtrack
The Review:

Are you ready for T4? I am, but the question is will Arnold be ready? Will he be too busy with politics or just too old for the role (I don’t think a T-800 in a wheelchair would make for a good action film)? Regardless, the people behind this third installment left things to where there will be a fourth Terminator film no matter if Mr. Schwarzenegger is seventy years old or just busy trying to run California.

As to this installment, things begin with John Connor (Nick Stahl, The Thin Red Line) living his life “off the grid” in the LA area hoping that what his mom prophesied was stopped by the events in the last film. Of course those things were not stopped, hence the third movie, because Judgment Day is inevitable. Anyway, the action really gets going once the T-X (Kristanna Loken) arrives from the future to start hunting John and his future lieutenants. John is currently being held by his future wife (neither knows this yet) Kate Brewster (Claire Danes, The Hours) at her animal clinic that he has broken into to steal medication after crashing is motorcycle. Soon the deadly T-X shows up and the destruction begins, but Kate and John are able to escape once the Terminator (Arnold, Collateral Damage) gets there. Now Kate has no idea what is going on, and she doesn’t believe what the Terminator and John tell her until her boyfriend turns into the T-X unit. After that it becomes a race to try and stop judgment day while having a few laughs, watching some good special effects, enjoying the fireworks, and getting more background information on the whole Terminator saga.

Just a few others in this Jonathan Mostow (U-571) directed film are Moira Harris, Earl Boen, Mark Famiglietti, and David Andrews (A Walk to Remember) as Kate’s dad. Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato wrote the screenplay while original writer/director James Cameron sat this version out.

T3 is interesting, occasionally funny, and filled with eye candy (there is a sweet silver Lexus convertible in the beginning that the T-X steals). But it seemed more like it was filler that was just there to get us to the next stage while filling in more information that we will need when the present becomes the future in T4. So, nothing great, but not necessarily bad, so I give T3 six couches.