Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
review by Melissa Prusi

The real Arnold Schwarzenegger or a wax statue? It's always so hard to tell.

I’ll bet you thought they couldn’t do another Terminator movie. After all, the last one ended with the good guys averting the disaster that caused all the time-traveling trouble to begin with, and you envisioned poor, beleaguered Sarah Connor and her son John living happily ever after in a nuclear winter-free world, didn’t you?

Sucker!

I’m glad you were wrong, because Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines is a terrific movie with big ideas and bigger action scenes. It picks up ten years after the last one left off. Sarah Connor is dead. John (Nick Stahl – In the Bedroom), who has ostensibly escaped his destiny as the future leader of the tattered remnants of humanity, is nonetheless haunted by nightmares of what might have been. Rightfully so, as it turns out, because it’s not long before another Terminator (Kristanna Loken) shows up. This one’s female and, like the version in Terminator 2, she can morph into any person or object she touches. She also comes with a substantial “onboard weapons system,” meaning she can turn her arm into a gun or a flamethrower. Handy! Her mission is to kill not only John Connor but all his future lieutenants as well.

Of course it wouldn’t be a Terminator movie without Arnold, so his obsolete model cyborg pops in too, once again programmed to protect John as well as Katherine Brewster (Claire Danes), a feisty young veterinarian whose future is fated to be nothing like the one she imagines with her fiancé.

"How's my hair?"

Director Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown, U-571), stepping in for James Cameron, does right by the franchise. He stages grand scenes of wanton destruction, like the breakneck chase involving a crane smashing its way through the streets of Los Angeles, but has a lighter touch and great timing with the comic relief elements as well. All the iconic Terminator moments are there – Arnold, shotgun in hand, striding out of the smoke; the evil Terminator, dead-eyed and relentless, pressing implacably towards her target – and Mostow handles them with an obvious appreciation for the material. The reverence may seem misplaced to some, but I’ve always found the Terminator – whichever Terminator -- to be a particularly chilling movie villain so it worked for me.

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the role he was born to play – emotionless cyborg. He slips effortlessly into character and his deadpan delivery is perfect. There’s something about Arnold in full-on robot mode that just cracks me up. Claire Danes is spunky and resourceful and poised to kick some serious ass if there’s another sequel. She convincingly handles the transition from regular life to bug-eyed terror to grim acceptance. I thought she got over her fiancé a little too quickly, but that’s more the writers’ fault than hers. Nick Stahl has a nice world-weariness about him as the unlikely last best hope of the human race, and carries most of the emotional weight of the story.

Things got a little out of hand at Cyborg-palooza.

Which brings us to the central themes and conundrums of the movie. Can destiny be averted, or is that why they call it destiny? If you prevent the tragedy that would have turned you into a hero, what’s left for you? And, of course, the paradox that, no matter how much I like the Terminator movies, bugs the crap out of me whenever I see one: If the machines succeed in killing John Connor in the past, and he doesn’t exist, they’ll have no need to send a machine back to the past to kill him, thus ensuring that he will exist, necessitating that they send a machine back to kill him, so he won’t exist . . . and it goes on like this until my brain explodes. (Don’t even get me started on how he engineered his own conception by sending his father back in time. How does that work?) Fortunately screenwriters John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris seem to have stronger skulls than I, and have fashioned a script that addresses this puzzle without dwelling on it, and also tells an exciting story filled with action, humor and some heart-wrenching emotional moments.

Ironic, isn’t it, that in a season of disposable, brainless fare this movie that actually has something on its mind is also the front-runner for sheer edge-of-your-seat summer action movie fun.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3.5 out of 4 bananas