Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
I’m a little amazed at how much I enjoyed this. And I’m even more amazed that I’m glad neither James Cameron nor his sometime wife, Linda Hamilton, were involved in this installment. Cameron because he tried to make T2 into “action movie as grand opera” and thus ruined a lot of the fun of it; and Hamilton because her intensity would have been pushed aside in the unabashed popcorn avalanche that is this movie.
Nick Stahl is a great improvement over the weaselly Edward Furlong as world savior John Connor, and director Jonathan Mostow is smart enough to realize that the Terminator franchise is both a pop culture touchstone and sort of a joke at the same time. Mostow packs in the action while keeping things light otherwise, even though this is (sort of) about the End Of The World. That’s the way it should be, I think, if this series is to keep going without Batmanizing itself.
The script even throws in some minor curveballs that, again, were interesting without being too convoluted or distracting to the “blow ’em up good” aesthetic.
I’m still trying to get this straight in my head: I *liked* Terminator 3? A movie that’s basically a smeared carbon of the last one? Yes. I’m just going to have to deal with that reality, I guess.
T3 is one of the first movies where my strident politics are screaming at me not to go. Arnold is threatening to run for California Governor. I feel like going to the movie is in some obtuse way supporting Republican politics. Have I gone over the edge?
My sixteen thousand dollar semester at Berklee taught me 2 things, one of which is, “you can watch the most technical, chopsey cat wail all night, but what it really comes down to is, ‘did you like it?'” If you didn’t like it, then the chops were worthless.