| | Arnold Schwarzenegger is a machine out to stop Judgement day in Terminator III: The Rise of the Machines. Movie review |
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July 29, 2003
 By Sally Scott
Rating: 6
The moral of this sequel to a sequel is, if some silly woman phones in the middle of the night demanding instant attention for a cat with a fur ball problem, tell the cat to take two aspirin and call back in the morning.
It just shouldn't happen to a vet.
Plot-wise, we're 12 years on and Claire Danes has replaced Linda Hamilton (who played our hero John Connor's mother Sarah in the first two films) as the female lead.
Danes is the hapless vet Kate Brewster, whose big shot army scientist daddy works for the dreaded Skynet Corporation where all that old nuclear apocalypse is nigh strain of where the plot emanates from
One for die hard fans only |
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As everyone knows Arnie is "back" (well, he kept saying he would be) as John Connor's guardian Terminator android.
And this time Arnie (in good back to basics form) goes leather to leather (these machines just love leather and boy band shades) with new nasty on the block Kristanna Loken.
Norwegian/American Loken has the "phwoar" factor in spades. She can expand from a mere 32A to 38DD in the blink of an automatic eye and is no mean morpher as she strikes a pose as the ultimate bitch T-X.
Once again, it's John Connor, future saviour of the world that the villain is after. And what's an action film without a car chase - or three?
And, yep, there is a lengthy wrecking spree of spectacular proportions - and
...I fell asleep. I should say here, that The Terminator (James Cameron's original sci-fi actioner), is on my top twenty list of all time favourites. So what went wrong? For a start new director Jonathan Mostow.
James Cameron refused to be enticed back into the Terminator fold - a fold which he originated.
"For whatever reason he just wasn't interested and we had to move on," says co-producer Mario Kassar.
I reckon Cameron had seen the writing on the wall and knew that, as far as audiences were concerned, the story had progressed about as far as it could. He was right. A couple of plot twists here and there do not a worthy sequel make.
Then there's the problem of Tedi (Tank Girl) Sarafian's totally unimaginative script which was "reworked" by Mostow and a couple of others.
Yawn? I could hardly bother to keep up. It also doesn't help to have the somewhat weedy looking Nick Stahl (of In the Bedroom), as our hero. The original Connor, Edward Furlong, was lined up but concerns over drug problems resulted in him being pulled by Warner Bros.
I mean, this is John Connor, the chosen one to save what's left of the human race. Stahl's bed headed Connor ain't got that X-factor baby. He could no more save the world than save one fat chick from being harpooned.
If you're a fan, don't expect too much and you'll probably enjoy. The 10-16 brigade certainly whooped it up at a preview earlier this week. But, for the rest of us fans, even some pretty spectacular SFX won't make up for the lack of edge, imagination and visual flair.
  
 
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