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A Warner Brothers release. Written by John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris; directed by Jonathan Mostow; starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Claire Danes and Nick Stahl. Released to DVD on November 11, 2003.  When word got out that Warner Brothers was making a third installment of the Terminator series minus writer/director James Cameron, people took notice. It was the extreme stunts and sheer lunacy of Cameron's imagination that propelled T1 and T2 to success; audiences really connected with the over-the-top action and near God-like status Cameron thrust on his badass anti-hero, the T-1000 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). With its creator absent and only Schwarzenegger returning from the cast of T2, the series seemed ripe for a sizeable letdown. A lot was going to rest on the shoulders of the man Warner Brothers tapped to helm the project. That man turned out to be Jonathan Mostow. Last having directed the claustrophobic submarine thriller U-571, Mostow was an interesting if not downright perfect choice to grab the reigns of T3. With some special effects expertise under his belt and little in the way of working with actors, Mostow was Cameron-lite, Cameron while shooting the original Terminator in 1984. Following much the same plot territory as T2, T3 features a future battle between man and machines. Fought to a bloody stalemate, both sides have taken to sending operatives back in time to kill important figures on either side of the battle; just imagine being able to remove Adolf Hitler from power in 1936. In this installment, the machines have sent back a top-of-the-line new robot, the Terminatrix (Kristanna Loken), to kill the leader of the resistance, John Connor (Nick Stahl). The humans in turn send their own robot back to protect Connor, a duplicate of the T-1000 (Schwarzenegger) that was destroyed at the end of T2. As a virtual rehashing of the second film, right down to the open ending, it's not that surprising that T3 feels rather hollow. There are new stunts and new car chases at which to marvel, but the plot does more to suggest that there will be a T4 and a T5 than anything else (at least, there better be to close out this franchise on a climactic note).  Connor himself has regressed as an empathetic character. As the movie opens, Connor is a paranoid drifter who breaks into veternary clinics for drugs. As the film progresses, he begins takes on an air of self-destructive indecision and meekness that just doesn't mesh well with the material. Part of this is problem stems from the script and part of this stems from Stahl's acting performance. A more than competent actor, Stahl has shown his ability to seamlessly deliver a wide range of emotions in films like In the Bedroom, Bully and Sunset Strip, which suggests that his sub-standard performance here might be more on the hands of Mostow than anything else. But absolutely no one went into this film even considering the acting, so this is a minor flaw at worst. Terminator 3 is just what it is supposed to be: a bigger-than-ever, special effects extravaganza complete with Arnold, one-liners and the standard predetermination theology so central to these Terminator movies. The only question is, how palatable is that concoction? | |||||
