Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines Review

Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines Review: I have admit that I thought Arnold had jumped the shark a long time ago. Sure “Conan the Barbarian”, “The Terminator”, and “Predator” were all classic action movies, but “Total Recall” back in 1990 was the last Arnold Movie that I really liked a lot. Sure “The 6th Day” & “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” weren’t bad, but Arnold has also pumped out a lot of stinkers like “Jingle All the Way”, “Batman & Robin”, “Collateral Damage”, “Juinor”, “The End of Days”, & “The Last Action Hero” since then. In short, you have to dig through a lot of dirt to find Arnold’s diamonds in the rough (of course, it could be worse, Arnold hasn’t fallen as far as Sylvester Stallone).

So given all that, I wasn’t exactly counting the days until “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” was released. But after seeing the movie, I have to say that not only did surpass expectations, but I honestly thought this was a better movie than “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” — although this movie certainly aped the plot of the previous movie in the series. As in the 2nd movie, a Terminator played by Arnold is sent back in time to stop another terminator from murdering John Connor and his liutenants. Of course, this requires lots of rolling firefights & terminator vs. terminator brawls which I found quite enjoyable.

Speaking of the terminators, Schwarzenegger was well served by being more of a mix between the relentless killer he was in the first movie and the sort of overly friendly to the point of being goofy version he played in movie two. Arnold got off a number of funny lines while still coming off as a killing machine. Moreover, the new Terminator played by Kristana Loken made an excellent villan. As remorseless as she was sexy, Loken played her part well.

There were a lot of other things to like about the movie. John Connor (played by Nick Stahl) & Kate (Claire Danes) both play likable characters who make you care whether they live or die, the movie has no “dead spots”, the action is outstanding, and the plot while similar to T2, will throw some twists at you that you don’t expect.

All in all, I was very pleased with this movie. It’s an excellent action flick that anyone who enjoyed the first and second Terminator movies will certainly enjoy this time as well. Thumb way up….

***Update***: I should have mentioned “True Lies” as one of Arnold’s quality movies since “Total Recall” although I still think “Total Recall” was a better movie. Furthermore, I was not a huge fan of T2. Not that it was a bad movie, but I really thought they made Arnold’s character too “cutesy” for my taste.

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