Terminator-a-Thon, Part 3 - Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Director: Jonathan Mostow

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Kristanna Loken, David Andrews

Country: United States

Rating: R

Run Time: 107 minutes

The true Terminator saga consists of the two films written and directed by James Cameron, 1984's The Terminator and 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Both films tell a cohesive and conclusive story that ends in the final moments of T2. In fact, the ending of T2 is about as conclusive as cinematic finales come. John and Sarah Connor successfully destroyed Cyberdyne Systems, the T-1000, the original T-800's arm and chip, and even the new T-800. There was no possible way that Judgment Day could ever occur based on their handy dandy clean up. Unfortunately, John and Sarah forgot about the one thing that could bring anything back from the dead: box office dollars.

After a whopping 13 year hiatus, the Terminator franchise came back in 2003 with what is arguably the worst entry in the franchise, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. T3 is a lousy, cheap, and dull cash grab that fails to tell an interesting story or live up to its predecessor's legacy. It was made purely to cash in on the franchise's name and to get one more Terminator film out of Schwarzenegger before he left acting for politics. Terminator 3 is anything but cinematic or meaningful. It's a cheap B-movie made for the likes of the SyFy channel lacking any emotional weight, freshness, or originality. Terminator 3 is nothing more than the exact same plot done over once again but with none of the impressive special effects or memorable character work that made Terminator 2 one of the greatest action sequels of all time. What is most insulting is that Terminator 3 makes the viewer suffer through an hour and a half of stale 'been there done that' material to get to an otherwise brave and atypical finale.

Eh, I prefer the future of T1 and T2, not this video game garbage.

Terminator 3 takes place in 2003, 12 years after the events of Terminator 2. John Connor (Nick Stahl) is now a lone drifter who travels from city to city on his own. When Sarah died of an illness in 1997, John hit the road and decided that as long as he moved from place to place, no Terminator could ever find him. However, 2003 happens to be the time when two more Terminators return to the present in order to battle for the fate of the future. The evil Terminator this go-a-round is the T-X (Kristanna Lokken), a female Terminator who has some of the T-1000's abilities as well as some new ones. The T-X has traveled to 2003 in order to eliminate as many of John's lieutenants from the future as possible in order to give SkyNet an edge over the humans.

However, the Resistance sends back a new T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), in order to locate John and protect him from the T-X if she were to find him. Due to one huge and ridiculous coincidence, John accidentally encounters Katherine Brewster (Claire Danes), his future wife, at the same time as both the T-X and the T-800 discover them. It is than up to John, Kate, and the T-800 to out run the T-X and to stop Kate's military father from activating SkyNet.

I know what you're thinking, why does that plot sound so familiar? Well, it's because screenwriters John Brancato and Michael Ferris essentially copied James Cameron's script for Terminator 2, but chose to replace names and places with new ones. Terminator 3 follows the same basic formula of Terminator 2 but injects no freshness or character depth the way that Terminator 2 did to differentiate itself from The Terminator. Its characters simply go from set piece to set piece and never grow or develop in any way. So right off the bat, Terminator 3 suffers a huge blow because the film is a lazy rehash of T2's 'good Terminator vs. bad Terminator' plot.

However, the script also sucks because it places our protagonists into a similar situation where they have to break into a heavily guarded place once again and stop SkyNet from being created/launched. It seems that John and Sarah's efforts were for naught in 1995, because the military still created SkyNet even though all of CyberDyne's work based on the T-800's arm was destroyed. I have so many problems with the script for Terminator 3 that it boggles my mind that the film ever got released. Where do I begin?

That horrible red outfit alone makes me want to turn the movie off.

My biggest problem with Terminator 3 resides within one line spoken by the T-800, "You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable." Hearing those words be uttered by the T-800 crushes my heart. Terminator 2 had a powerful message about our fates being only what we make and that no future is set in stone. It's a positive message that gives its characters hope in the face of annihilation. Unfortunately, Terminator 2's screenwriters had to scrap that mentality altogether in order to explain the Terminator's reappearance. There is truly no good reason for Terminator 3's existence except for box office dollars, plain and simple. T3's screenwriters didn't even try to come up with a reason as to why Sarah's efforts in Terminator 2 failed. Instead, they came up with some bull crap response that Judgment Day is so powerful that it can only be postponed but not stopped. After 13 years, that was the best they could come up with.

Terminator 3 is also ridden with plot holes. First off, why would the resistance send the T-800 back in time to save John if he had no clue as to where John was. SkyNet sent the T-X back in time in order to kill John's lieutenants because they could not locate John, fair enough. Therefore, I am supposed to believe that the resistance took a gamble and sent back the T-800 just to be safe? What if the T-800 never found John? The only reason the four lead characters collide is so that Terminator 3 can get on the road towards duplicating Terminator 2 beat by beat. Also, I don't understand why the T-X orgasms when she licks John's blood and recognizes him. Why did the screenwriters make the T-X lick blood to recognize people anyways? Was it purely to add more sex appeal to the film?

I also don't understand why the T-X reprograms the T-1's to do her bidding and kill all humans when SkyNet is about to go online and make all of the machines self aware anyways. Did she just want to jumpstart the machines herself? When John sees the T-1's start to go on a rampage, he says, "They've become self aware!" But they haven't, ugh. Also, why would the screenwriters now introduce that a Terminator's fuel cells can explode? If this is true, why didn't previous Terminators' fuel cells explode at the end of T1 and T2? As you can see from the last five paragraphs, the Terminator 3 script is riddled with plot holes and franchise inconsistencies that do nothing but piss me off.

Arnold kicks ass with a mini gun yet again.

Terminator 3 is all around less filmic and artistic in contrast to its masterful predecessors. The film is burdened by uninspired cinematography and a truly awful film score. Marco Beltrami composes an almost entirely new set of compositions that barely retain any of Brad Fiedel's original themes. And while I respect that Beltrami wanted to craft a score that is mostly fresh, none of his themes are inspired or memorable. Therefore, the only time the film's music comes to life is whenever one of Fiedel's classic themes pops up. And speaking of music, Terminator 3 has a horrendous selection of songs that make painfully unfunny comedic moments even unfunnier. You'll be begging for T2's perfect inclusion of "Bad to the Bone" once you hear crap like "Get Funky Man, Get Funky."

It also doesn't help that the film's sense of humor steers towards self parody and cartoonish slap stick a-la Alien Resurrection. The screenwriters either didn't take the film seriously or understand how to write good comedy. For example, the film's first major set piece, a truly fantastic and awesome car chase, is burdened by numerous cartoonish moments of the T-800 being ripped from a motorcycle by a hook, slammed into an ambulance, and than splatted across the front of a fire truck. These actions sound like scenes from a Looney Tunes cartoon, not a Terminator film! I also hate all of the throw away characters (the gay stripper, the convenience store clerk, the fire men, etc) who appear simply to partake in what is supposed to be a humorous moment at their expense involving the T-800. "Humorous" moments such as Arnold putting on a pair of a star studded sunglasses or pointing his hand towards a clerk and saying, "Talk to the hand," really liven up the film! I hope you sense my sarcasm.

So how about the performances? After all, one of The Terminator and Terminator 2's strongest points were their amazing performances and the arcs that accompanied them. Well here, they're eh, that's all I can muster to say. No one is particularly awful, but no is ever memorable or even great. I guess that truly is the worst insult of all for a film when it contains a batch of performances that are as cookie cutter as they come. Nick Stahl does a decent job in the John Connor role, but lacks the likability of Furlong's performance from T2. The character is ruined by the script's decision to turn him into a whining wimp who fears his destiny so that he can have sort of an arc into the future leader of the resistance. Unfortunately, there are no key moments on John's journey that help define his arc. The most notable moment is a scene where the T-800 picks up John and says he should kill him, only for John to lash back. But otherwise, John is the furthest thing from the savior of the future in this film.

Do it please! Save us from this movie!

But how is Arnold? After all, he is the veteran and marque name of the franchise. Well, he's alright. Like I said before, the material hampers most of his performance, not Arnold himself. Unlike T2, the T-800 arcs and changes in no way. He simply shows up, informs our characters on oodles of important exposition, and kicks ass every now and than. Arnold's first appearance within the film feels more like an expected story beat than it does a mysterious or memorable moment. This was also Arnold's last role before he became the Governor of California. Some believe that Arnold's heart was not in the role because a) he was paid an insane amount of money to star even without James Cameron's involvement, and b) he reviewed legislation and documents while on set, essentially already acting as the Governor of California while also being the Terminator. He truly was the Governator on the set of Terminator 3. While I wouldn't say that Arnold's heart wasn't in the role, it's clear that Arnold saw this as a fun chance to return to the character that defined his career and have a fun ride one last time regardless of the awful script.

However, everyone, including Claire Danes, is leaps and bounds better than Kristanna Lokken's forgetful turn as the T-X, the franchise's first female Terminator. Oh boy, where do I start with her? First off, the screenwriters try to play off of the T-X's sex appeal as much as possible. We are treated to several sexualized scenes that play off of the T-X's feminity, such as a gross moment where she increase her breast size to attract a cop and a ridiculous moment where she orgasms when she licks John's blood and recognizes that it is his blood. I think these scenes are utterly insulting and degrading to the character and female gender in general because they make the character more like a sexualized object than a human being (sorry, cyborg). Why can't the T-X just be a bad ass killing machine like the T-1000 devoid of these ridiculous sexualized moments? 

Also, Kristanna Lokken has got to ditch that terrible red outfit. Oh man, I cannot stand that awful outfit! It is so dated and disgusting that it makes me want to turn the film off or at least fast forward through her scenes. It's clear that Lokken tried to emulate Robert Patrick as much as possible with her calm demeanor and lines like, "I like your gun," that are similar to Patrick's readings from T2, "Say, that's a nice bike." Unfortunately, her character is nothing more than a cheap copy cat that fails to be anywhere near as memorable as the T-1000.

Terminator 3's technical merits are especially weak, arguably the worst within the franchise. Its action sequences suffer from an overabundance of dated computer generated graphics and all around lack of creativity or tension. However, the film's opening car chase in which John escapes the T-X as the T-800 pursues them atop a motorcycle is great stuff. Jonathan Mostow lays waste to an entire city with this sequence as nearly every car and building in site gets flattened, crushed, or destroyed by the vehicular mayhem. It's unfortunate that the film's action peaks in the first 30 minutes and never rises above its inspired lunacy. The film also features oodles of terrible stock sound effects; from gun shots, to smashed tiles, to door hinges, T3 is a nightmare for your ears. 

I can't help but laugh at this shot, it's just so stupid.

The most positive compliment that I can pay Terminator 3 is that its final scene is a truly powerful and surprising one. After an hour and a half of stale adventure, Terminator 3 tricks the audience into believing that John and Kate will shut down SkyNet. However, the two realize upon their arrival to Crystal Peak, the supposed place that Kate's father said can shut down SkyNet, is none other than a fallout shelter. There never was a chance at shutting down SkyNet. Therefore, Kate's father lied and led them to the safest place on the planet, a fall out shelter deep underground. This ending is extremely surprising because it pulls the rug out from underneath the audience's feet and essentially jumpstarts the long awaited Judgment Day. It's just frustrating that such an uninspired film gets this inspired in its final scene! 

Once again I find myself writing more than I probably should about a film that doesn't deserve my time or attention. But alas, my devotion to the genre and the Terminator franchise gets the better of me sometimes. Terminator 3 is one of the most forgettable sequels that I have ever seen. My brain regards it as more of a piece of big budgeted fan fiction and not a sincere and legitimate sequel to one of the greatest action films of all time. It's a shame that the film is so uninspired and lazy though. It has almost no filmic merit and in no way needs to be seen by anyone other than fans of the franchise or Arnold heads. Just as the T-800 reminds us that "Judgment Day" is inevitable, I guess that a sequel to two of the most successful science fiction films of all time was inevitable. But did it have to be this bad? Fortunately, the future apocalypse hinted at in the film's final moments led to a much better sequel.

Rating: 4/10 - A lazy and insulting sequel that hampers what could have been a perfect Terminator saga.

Franchise:

The Terminator (dir. James Cameron, 1984)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (dir. James Cameron, 1991)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (dir. Jonathan Mostow, 2003)

Terminator: Salvation (dir. McG, 2009)

Terminator: Genisys (dir. Alan Taylor, 2015)