Last night I saw some of my friends and had a Fourth of July barbeque, and proceded to get really, really smashed. I left the party early just because I knew I couldn’t take any more drinking once they guys whent down to the bar. So I came home and pretty much mellowed out in the head, laying around and waiting for the sobering up part to happen. Then my dad wakes me up at 10 to move some wood to the stacks in front of the basement, me still not feeling tip top but moving nonetheless. I had to do all of this because we were to see T3 that afternoon, and thankfully, I sobered up enough to be alert by then. So without further ado:
——Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines——
(Note: Spoilers tend to sneak into my reviews without my noticing, so if you don’t want me to blow some detail of the movie for you beware. I’ll try my best not to give away anything important, although if I do, I’ll at least try to let you know.)
T3 was a disappointment for me. One review I read I think said it best with: T2 is to T3 like Das Boot is to U-571 (the director of which also directed T3): U-571 is a fun little action movie that takes place on a sub, but when compared to Das Boot it is apparent that U-571 doesn’t really have a soul to it of its own. The same with T3. It’s a really fun action movie, and yet it is missing the depth that James Cameron infused with the fantastic T2 (James Cameron has no involvement in T3, since he and the producers had a falling out a long time ago). Having just rewatched the first two movies a week ago, it becomes apparent when watching T3 that there is actually no story in this one, at least nothing that would stand on its own without the action set pieces. Instead the movie feels like an extended chase scene that stalls inevitability. It feels like an Act One of a Three act play, or like the Second Renaissance shorts of the animatrix. Nothing is concluded, none of the characters grow, nothing of particular interest actually happens. There is none of the “Fate is what we make” fun of the first two movies, which leaves the movie with an overall despair that doesn’t suit the action movie the script is wrapped around.
The movie is made with a self awareness that is so startlingly omnipresent that the movie starts to feed off of the audience’s knowledge of what’s come before. All of the humor of the movie relates directly to something that happened in the first two movies. While some of it is really good, it would be nice to see a new joke that’s a lot better than the gay stripper joke at the start of the movie.
There are two really good reasons to watch this movie, the first being the amazing crane chase. This rivals the chase in the Matrix Reloaded for coolest chase of the year, the CGI being extremely well done and believable as buildings and cars are smashed all over the place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more destructive chase, the crane being just as scary as the semis in the first two movies, if not more so. This scene is reason enough to see this movie. Also increadibly cool is the knock-down, drag out fight between Arnold and the Terminatrix in the military base. It pretty much consists of the two of them throwing each other thru walls, and then destroying a men’s room, piece by piece. It’s pretty damn cool.
Otherwise there is not much to love in this movie, other than it having really impressive special effects all over. There is almost no score to this movie, which I found odd, since in T2 some of the most spine tingling moments come from the industrial factory on speed soundtrack. Who can forget the score for when Robert Patrick as the T1000 was running after a car, or just the general creepy noises that come out of nowhere whenever a Terminator is on screen. There is none of that here. In fact the main theme for the Terminator isn’t even heard until the closing credits. Speaking of credits, the openning ones are extremely lame black background and white type, with nothing else to look at. Where are the cool credits from T2?
I guess Claire Danes and Nick Stahl are alright, considering they are given just husks of characters to try to develop in the movie; Nick’s backstory is completely from T2–he’s got nothing new to work with. Arnold I feel could have used a little more direction. Sometimes he is spot on as the Terminator, and yet at other points you wish they would have done at least one more take. Kristanna Loken as the Terminatrix lacks the badassness of Arnold’s Terminator, or the cold creepy robot like behavior of Richard Patrick’s T-1000. Instead she is just vacant most of the time, not unlike the fashion dummies on display in the storefront she first appears in. I also kind of wish they spent a little more time explaining what exactly she can do, being half T-800, half T-1000, with a dash of something else. (Can anyone tell me why Arnold’s Terminator model number is now T-101?)
One question: Does the fact that Arnold’s Terminator has never ran once that I can remember, while the other two Terminators have done lots of running, imply that he is slower and less effective, or that he is more badass and doesn’t have to run (considering that in the original Terminator he was the only one of the Terminators to remotely come close to killing his target, and in the two sequels he has been successful in fighting off the far superior models)?
Anyway, the final review that this is one of the most expensive B-movies ever made, with some decent action but not much else to wet your whistle. I’d talk about the end of the movie, but I don’t want to give it away for people who haven’t seen it, so I guess I’ll just go to my grade for it, which is:
B-
C'est Non Un Blog 
T3 (model 101)
In T2, after the first wondrous chase scene–in the dried up canal system, comes the scene where John has T-800 pull over, checks the cullet wounds for blood, and asks something like:
“Wow. You’re really real. I mean, you’re a terminator…right?”
To which Arnold responds something very close to:
“Affirmative. Cyberdyne Systems 101.”
I’m quoting from memory, but that may also be when he goes on to say: “Living flesh over a metal endoskeleton.”
…The scene plays out fairly quickly, and not long after (I think they’re consecutive, with the exception of a Sarah scene in between, we get a scene in the dark on the motorcycle, where John asks:
“So this other guy, he’s a Terminator like you, right?”
T-800 replies:
“Not like me. A T-1000! Animetic poly-alloy.”
After I first saw T2, years ago, I vaguely remembered these scenes in such a way that I thought Arnie was a T-100, or a T-101, (flesh over endoskeleton) as opposed to R. Patrick’s T-1000 (Animetic poly-alloy…liquid metal, whatever).
I think that the term ‘T-800’ is never mentioned during T2. I now understand these things to mean that all Terminators have brains that are Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 (or perhaps some enhanced variant). I think that refers to the computer in his head–the chip that Dyson studies, ya know.
Most of this information I got from watching T1 a few more times, as well as looking over the wealth of material on the T2 DVD.
But I’ve noticed that other people remeber Arnie as being “model 101.” Certainly his lines in that scene are pretty memorable. So either the t3 screenwriters remembered wrong to, or they forgot to go back and look at the original The Terminator, or they figured that the audience was too stupid to remember right so what the hell.
Apologies for the over-long attempt at explanation, and your review, which was on Sara’s page, is pretty dead on I think.
“Anyway, the final review that this is one of the most expensive B-movies ever made, with some decent action but not much else to wet your whistle.”
Dead on.
Curran
P.S. I’m also told that Cyberdyne Systems is, or was, a real company in the 70s, and that the model 101 was a real processor chip.
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