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Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
(Reviewed June 19, 2003)
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There's an okay mass-destruction car-chase scene that must have cost some bucks, but other than that this movie has the cheap, utterly superflous and unnecessary vibe of a second-rate cable spin-off TV series. Arnold is the only returning cast member, and the guy who replaces Edward Furlong is as dull as a soap-opera actor. Claire Danes is actually pretty good (and somehow manages to get better looking as she ages), but seems very out of place. The chick who plays the new female Terminator looks yum-yum-yummy in a (regrettably brief) dorsal nudity shot when she first shows up with sexy shoulder-length ringlets, but for the rest of the movie her face is so impassive and her hair is pinned back so severely she looks like a cross between Jenny Garth and Barbie.
The movie can't make up its mind whether to be a sequel or a parody. James Cameron will either wince in shocked outrage or laugh in cruel derision when he sees naked Arnold stroll into a Chippendales-style club and get his leather outfit this time around from a Village-People-macho-man male stripper. The audience audibly groaned at some of the "Arnold-isms." (When the distaff Terminator falls down an elevator shaft, Arnold says, "She'll be back.") And I don't think it was merely the fact that I had just stepped off a transatlantic flight that made me actually DROP OFF TO SLEEP more than once during the movie.
Maybe it's time to pull the plug on this franchise. Or, as Moe the bartender would say, "Power off, Einstein."
Back Row Grade: F
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