This was a very short piece I wrote summer of 2003.  It was written in-between the days/weeks/months AFTER The Vanguard days and BEFORE MovieFreak, while I was writing very heavily on my (regretfully) deleted Live Journal account I had then. 

This is not a GREAT review by any means.  And it isn’t edited. This was my style then. 

I bought the Terminator Blu Ray box set last year, and watched the third film for the first time in years. I don’t have the same feelings toward RISE OF THE MACHINES film as I did then.  Perhaps I was just a little to harsh. I still think it was a disappointment, but hardly as bad as I made it out to be.  Shit, you compare it to films like TRANSFORMERS (and its sequels), Terminator 3 is a masterpiece. 

The fourth film is also pretty good.  Not great.  Not T2.  But pretty good.  I am slightly curious with the new Terminator film next year.  It’s either going to be great, bad, or T3!

***

“I thought we’d prevented Judgment Day.  But now…it’s all starting again,” Sarah Connor, played by Linda Hamilton in the Universal Studios attraction, said.  That’s exactly what the tone is for T3 (technically T4 if you don’t disregard the attraction as a sequel).   And later in the movie, Arnold states that mommy and Johnny boy didn’t stop Judgment Day just postponed it.  T3 hits where Matrix Reloaded tried and failed to bring out a sequel with lots of effects and no bore.   But what T3 fails in is the comparison of T1/T2.  T1 became a cult classic with its effects, direction, while allowing a follow up to take place.  T2 became timeless when the direction of CIG started affecting movie magic.   I remember the first time I saw T2, I was amazed in disbelief.  Robert Patrick’s performance as the ruthless villain scared the shit out of me (similar to what the T-Rex’s and Raptors did in Jurassic Park).  I was hoping T3 would dazzle me in that same direction.

What made T2 even better than T1 were the drama, the plot, and the darkness that it portrayed.  T3 is nothing more than a reproduction of both flicks.  Nothing new; just the same plot one twice.  I see now what the writers were trying to do.  They weren’t trying to work a new cult classic or make a breakthrough film but simply a summer box office flick that will be forgotten years from now (will anyone remember it 2013?)

Aside from the crane scene, I did not enjoy T3 one bit.  Just let it die, already!   At least let it die in dignity!