OVERVIEW -
John Connor is 22 and keeping a very low profile. By living "off the
grid" and not having a phone, a home, or credit cards, he
avoids being detected by Skynet (the network of machines that's still
after him). Unable to find Connor, Skynet sends its latest creation
(the TX), a faster, stronger, smarter, and nearly indestructible fembot
terminator!
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes,
Kristanna Loken, David Andrews, Mark Famiglietti, Matthew Bonnar
Director(s) Jonathan Mostow
Screenwriter(s) John Brancato, Michael Ferris
Studio Warner Bros.
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You
know... I just don't get it with these time travelling chaps. Why don't
they just set the dial to the Victorian era and kill every first born
child! Probably make for a good movie too! Well, that kind of logic
won't sell a movie, and this one doesn't need to be 'sold' anyway! We're
all gonna see it, we know we are, and if we don't actually go to the
movies we'll get the DVD on the day it comes out and watch it wishing we
had a bigger telly and a louder home theatre to shake down the walls
with!
A lot of fuss has
been made about it not being a Cameron project. Cameron Shmameron! I never
really noticed (or cared!) Blimey it's 20 years since the first one! Well,
almost! And 12 years since 'T2!' Where does the time go, eh?
OK..."Terminator 3" amounts to the ripping open of an old
wound. John Connor (Nick Stahl) is now a young man who shouldn't have the
fears of mortal man, now that the mechanical assassins of the future are
no longer being ordered to terminate him. Yet now that his mother has died
of leukemia, John is an anxious drifter convinced that his future remains
apocalyptic.
Even if you have not seen the first two movies, (yeah right!),
"Terminator 3" is a taut, exciting science fiction thriller that
pumps up the adrenaline without forgetting that we are a sophisticated
movie go-er with the power of (a) rational thought...
Directed by Jonathan Mostow, ("U-571,") the new movie always
seems to want to outshine the previous ones, and very often it does just
that.
"Terminator 3" repeats many of the "T2" good
Terminator/bad Terminator lines, with Arnold Schwarzenegger
"back" as yet another version of his original granite faced,
sunglasses totin' Terminator, sent from the future. And as in
"T2," the nice 'Schwarzenegger' Terminator is less
technologically advanced than the evil Fembot Terminator threatening John
and the fate of mankind. (So why do the good guys of the future fail to do
their upgrades? Oh well!)
The new, ruthless "Terminatrix," or simply TX, is a cool looking
fembot by any standards. Played by Kristanna Loken with an ice-princess
attitude, magnetism and steely glare of the wonderful Sharon Stone in
"Basic Instinct," TX boasts the morphing abilities of her
"T2" predecessor, can turn her arms into firearms and, most
importantly, can control other machines telepathically (or whatever the
fembot equivalent is.)
'The chase' is the movie's true show stopper. It's an eruption of glorious
mayhem that beats the crap out of The silly Matrix movies. And this mayhem
is a lot more real and has more of a 'bloody hell... how the fuck did they
do that' feel to it. 'TX' takes over a huge truck with a fly-away crane
that takes out lampposts, cars and anything else in its path. The high
point comes when our hero is hanging at the end of the crane, and 'TX' is
running it through office buildings to dislodge him. Bloody excellent
stuff.
It is cinematic summer feasts like this that makes it almost worthwhile
having no football to watch. Of course you have to embrace the genre of
mass destruction as entertainment. I do! But it's OK, because this isn't
all just mindless destruction. The director and screenwriters John
Brancato and Michael Ferris ("The Game") maintain a somber tone
as they take the movies science-fiction selling points seriously.
(This is not to say there is no humour. There is, but it really takes a
back seat in this show.) The explanation for this story's continuation is
never plausible: It's science FICTION, OK?
When an insidious computer virus threatens the nation's defense systems,
top government officials want to use Skynet to combat it, even though its
architect, Kate's father, Robert Brewster (David Andrews), fears that it
isn't ready. (Well, no points for original story, eh?) The movie becomes a
race against time as John and Kate try to warn her father that activating
Skynet indeed will start the clock ticking toward doomsday.
What about Schwarzenegger? He is about the only real life super-hero on
the planet isn't he! His recent career suggests that he may have outgrown
the action movie scene, but he is always comfortable here and keeps his
appeal as the wry, dry and deadpan Terminator. He's on a real groove!
Actor, nice guy, father, politition? But by night... chalking up the
millions by biffing our super enemies off the planet so we can sleep easy
at night. When you watch the actor you can see through his disguise, and
conversely when we watch the fella on the big screen we see the man
(through the metal) as he is, also.
Anyway when it's all over and done with and the credits are rolling, you
get the nagging feeling that "T3" really doesn't capture the
emotional largesse of "T2." Despite large scale sets and monster
movie mayhem, it feels small and needing. It sets the viewer up for
"Terminator 4", but I for one won't be holding my pop-corn and
pepsi flavoured breath for another man vs. machine mega war film. Besides,
who knows whether California would give Schwarzenegger time off from his
gubernatorial duties to film it? Ah, he could swing it. He's a super hero,
right? And that is a commodity of which the world is in short supply right
now...
Great summer block-buster.
Go see it.
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