Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

Spoilers ‘n shit

Carolco Pictures (along with two other production companies) made Terminator 2 in 1991.  The mega producer owners Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna wanted to continue with the series but Showgirls and Cutthroat Island bankrupted them.  So they bought back the rights to the Terminator series at auction and regrouped to form C2 Pictures.  A few years later we got Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.  A ballsy move considering it doesn’t involve anyone that had anything to do with the first two Terminators except Arnold Schwarzenegger and Stan Winston.  And the result is…well…really good.

Let’s start with the cast.  Nick Stahl (The Man Without a Face) plays the grown up John Connor.  He’s become a paranoid drifter that wants to believe that he and his mother Sarah Connor (now dead and therefore does not appear in the film) avoided judgment day.  But he knows in his heart that shit still doesn’t seem right.  He doesn’t have a cell phone or try and make contact with anyone he knows or go anyplace that will keep a record of his name or existence.  You know, just in case another terminator goes back in time and tries to kill him…again.  Well that strategy doesn’t really work because a terminator does get sent back in time and finds him easily.  Admittedly the new terminator sort of stumbles upon him but it had a good idea of where to look so it wasn’t a total shot in the dark.  Anyway, Stahl is actually really great in this role and makes me wonder why we don’t see more of him in mainstream movies.  He really conveys the conflicted emotions about him kind of wanting the war hero and leader stuff to be true but at the same time he doesn’t want to be burdened with it all.  I mean imagine if someone told you that one day you’ll possibly be the most important human ever to have lived because you prevented your race from being wiped out by machines.  And you know that it’s really going to happen because you’ve witnessed yourself two killing machines from the future battle it out over you.  That’s some heavy shit to lay on a kid even if it wasn’t true but because you have proof that it’ll actually happen has got to fuck with you.  Again, I’m getting all of this from Stahl.  I can feel he’s being tortured and has had to put up with it almost all his life.  The scariest parts for him might be the years in between Terminator 2 and 3 because after a while he might think that he’s going crazy, especially after judgment day was supposed to have passed.  When the terminators show up again he’s in a state of panic but at least he knows what’s going on and can rest assured that it wasn’t just all in his mind or something.  This character is really complex and it’s interesting to see him grown up because we get to see how John Connor has taken all of this in over the years and what he thinks of it now.  In Terminator 2 he didn’t have time to process this stuff because his mother was there to tell him what was what and the situation with the terminators was so immediate that he had to either get with the program or be killed.  There’s no time for second thoughts.  In Terminator 3 he handles things a little differently.  John Connor becomes so desperate and overwrought with the state of affairs that he threatens to kill himself at one point proclaiming that he doesn’t want any part of his destiny.  This more or less fits with part 2 and now that he’s older we see that he still doesn’t think he’s some hotshot hero.  He just wants to be left alone. 

Stahl may seem unassuming but I think that’s part of the point.  Do you buy that Edward Furlong is supposed to be the future leader of mankind?  Yeah, not really but that’s just it.  It’s about greatness coming from within and it’s the same with Stahl.  I think he’s just unassuming enough to work.  He’s not some obvious big brawny dude, pretty boy model or total nerd with geeky glasses and a pocket calculator.  He’s just the right balance of misfit and average Joe.  The only weird part that comes up though is when he thinks Arnold is the same terminator from T2.  John Connor was there when that T-800 killed himself in molten metal.  But other than that it’s a great performance.

Kristanna Loken (BloodRayne) is the new evil terminator called the T-X.  This movie follows the tradition of the series of casting a relative unknown as the villain.  Ok, ok Schwarzenegger did Conan the Barbarian right before The Terminator and that was successful but it was the Terminator role that made him a mega star.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how much you like the following actors) Robert Patrick and Kristanna Loken did not shoot to superstardom after their portrayals of terminators from the future.  Anyway, Loken does fine here.  She plays a machine well, pretty much never showing emotion.  I thought it was nice to have a female terminator this time too.  I mean a good ol’ macho fest is always welcome around these parts but I think it’s a good change of pace for the series.

Claire Danes (Brokedown [sic] Palace) is Kate Brewster and she’s the audience representation this time around (Edward Furlong took that job in T2).  She doesn’t know what’s going on and does a lot of wide eyed shocked staring.  Surprisingly Brewster is not annoying here and it’s because of her redeeming qualities towards the end of the film.  She shoots down a flying killer robot and pilots a plane that allows her and John to escape the city.  So if you think Kate is just some dumb broad that they threw in there to scream at everything then think again.  Well she does do that for two thirds of the film but the fact is she helps out in more important ways than one so that means I like her.  She may not be Sarah “balls to the wall” Connor but Kate just learned about all this shit and has less than 24 hours to get her act together so I cut her some slack.

That just leaves the terminator himself, Arnie.  How does he stack up this time twelve years later?  Well this is definitely the least threatening he’s been in this role.  He said that he beefed up for the part and even got back to his dimensions when he did T2 but I don’t know if it’s the way he was shot or the digital terminators that were inserted into some of the action scenes that were messing with me or the lighting or something else ‘cause he sure doesn’t look as big or downright menacing this time.  He still moves alright but you can tell he’s older and it feels like he didn’t put as much effort into it for this installment.  It could be Jonathan Mostow’s direction or maybe that has nothing to do with it.  I dunno.  It’s still nice to see Arnie as the terminator though and it’s good that he took up the role one last time before he got too old.  I’ll admit it’s borderline here but I think he pulls it off well enough.

Now on to the action and man does this movie deliver.  It starts out with a little back story, a small update of events and characters and then we move into the plot proper.  The T-X starts killing John Connor’s future lieutenants first instead of just going for the main target which is really smart and I’m glad the machines adjusted their strategy this time ‘cause after failing two previous times wouldn’t you change your tactics too?  And getting some of those other commanders out of the way should change the war at least a little bit.  But when the T-X goes after Kate Brewster (who’s with John Connor) the real battle begins.  The terminators duke it out on the streets, in an office building, in a cemetery and etc.  There are two big chunks of action, one towards the beginning and one towards the end, with a smaller (but still awesome) action chunk in the middle.  All of it has such a grand scope to it and that’s what I like to see in a Terminator picture.  None of the action scenes are bad in my opinion either.  But the shining crown jewel that this movie offers is the first car chase (yeah, there are two).  John and Kate are in a Toyota pickup truck, Arnie starts on a police motorcycle and moves to a fire truck, the T-X has police cars and an ambulance under remote control (that’s the new gimmick this one has) but the T-X itself  is on a giant motherfuckin’ crane truck.  I don’t know what the proper name for it is but it’s a fucking crane on a goddamn truck that looks like it’s at least twice the size of a fire truck.  And this thing does so much damage it’s unfathomable.  The whole chase scene is a beautiful piece of art and alone makes this film worth watching.

The other really great scene is the mano a mano fight between the T-800 and the T-X.  They beat the shit out of each other and the surrounding building.  It mostly takes place in a bathroom and they use it well by smashing urinals on each other, smashing through toilets, smashing through stall walls and just a lot of other smashing in general.  It’s a real smash fight. 

There are, inevitably (it’s a third installment after all), some bad things in here.  First, the look of this one is lighter, slicker and glossier than the previous films.  Pretty much the entire movie takes place during the day and in less than 24 hours as opposed to the previous two which were set (if memory serves) mostly at night and over the span of a couple of days.  I like the 24 hour bit but the daytime thing definitely isn’t as cool, either looking or feeling.  There’s a lot of CGI in this too.  Some of it doesn’t look terrible but most of it is kinda bad and you all know by now how I feel about CGI so I don’t think I need to expand on it.  I wish they would’ve used the Terminator theme but we don’t hear it until the end credits which is kinda weird and inexcusable.  But the worst aspect of this movie is the humor.  Just about all of the bad jokes are by Schwarzenegger too.  There’s the strip club scene where he gets his signature outfit, the star shaped sunglasses that he initially puts on, the “talk to the hand” sass that he gives to the gas station guy, the part where he tells Kate to relax (you have to see it to get it) and others.  They’re all very unfunny and unwarranted.  There was a little bit of humor in the first two Terminators but not much so it’s not like it’s tradition for the series to crack a bunch of bad jokes.  It’s a shame and too bad that the filmmakers couldn’t help themselves.  And that’s my biggest beef with this thing, stupid fucking jokes in an otherwise serious action film.

So all in all I think this Terminator kicks ass.  In fact I think the first Terminator is only slightly better and I would kind of rather watch this one most times.  It’s like Alien and Aliens.  I guess Alien really is the better picture but if you ask me which one I would rather watch at any given moment there’s a 90% chance that I’m gonna say, “Aliens”.  The Terminator is good ‘n all but it has just a little too much down time and it doesn’t have that amazing car chase sequence with a crane truck.  I mean don’t get me wrong, Terminator 2 is by far the best one.  It’s a masterpiece and I don’t know if there’s such a thing as a perfect film but fuck it, it’s a perfect film.  No other Terminator movie is going to beat it, ever.  In fact a lot of movies aren’t going to beat it. 

How badass does this look?

But Terminator 3 is pretty great for what it is.  It’s one last hurrah for Arnie and the series proper (I thought Terminator Salvation was just ok and less interesting than when the terminators exist in our time battling it out).  I can understand people getting tired of seeing basically the same story as the first two installments but goddamn is it a great premise.  These films made the most out of the idea of two virtually indestructible robots from the future going head to head.  I know most of you out there think that T2 wrapped up things nicely and that there’s no need for a third film but I think it fits right in there.  I especially dig the solemn ending (a Mostow trademark) with the beautiful imagery of the nukes going off and the idea that judgment day is inevitable.  This one makes a bigger deal out of destiny than the other two and I like that idea.  No matter what you do, if you’re destined to do something then it’s gonna happen whether you like it or not so you can either fight it or make the most of it.  I think that’s fitting for this movie.  Hollywood makes a ton of sequels and in the early 2000’s it seemed inevitable that there would be another Terminator picture so you can either try and pretend that it doesn’t exist or saddle up for one last ride.  I say “ride, postman!”  Uh, I mean…whatever just see it.  It’s awesome.

Side note: I saw The Hidden recently and there was something about it that was bugging me but I couldn’t put my finger on it.  Then while watching T3 this last time I realized that it was a Terminator rip off.  Just instead of robots it’s aliens.