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Review by Harvey Karten
3 stars out of 4
Remember when the first computers came out in the U.S. not
the ones used only by academic researchers and the military
but the ones we could put to our own use at home and in
school? Recall the excitement we had doing what would now
be considered elementary, such as highlighting a paragraph,
moving it up in our reports, and pasting it wherever we wanted?
And how we built home pages, putting in our own photos, our
own poems and samples of our philosophy? We can still do all
that, but the thrill of the novel, while not gone, is now not really
there. With chat rooms that allow us to talk in real time with
friends in Australia without giving the phone company more than
the price of a local call, with 3 billion internet pages searchable
by google that make a mockery of our own little home pages,
with speedy broadband allowing us to see video clips in
moments rather than waiting a half hour or so to download, we
now appreciate the convenience, but again: the thrill of the
brand new is out. This is perhaps why sequels may be even
more awesome than the original movies (given advances in
technology) but do not usually delight us as much as earlier
renditions.
That's the way you may feel when you leave "Terminator 3:
Rise of the Machines," particularly if you've taken in either
James Cameron's T1 (1984) or the same director's Terminator
2: Judgment Day," which came out in 1991. While Arnold
Schwarzenegger is boldly featured in all three and is looking
buff as ever at the age of 55, the plot lines are about the same
and what's more, though Arnold can knock off a few witty lines
as only he with his dry humor can, "T3" relies all to much on its
firepower: its digital computer activity, its smashing stunt work,
its scenes of absolutely mayhem that would have put "Hulk" in
his place before he took a step. The film deserves its grade of
"B" based on its delightfully anarchistic sensibility: smashing,
pushing, swinging, burning, blowing up to such an extent that if
Schwarzenegger makes it to the California governor's mansion,
he'll nothing to administer but an extended Mojave Desert.
In "T3," with Jonathan Mostow replacing James Cameron at
the helm using John Brancato and Michael Ferris's script , we
learn that Judgment Day, the end of humanity which should
have come (via "T2") about from Skynet's self-aware and angry
machines, did not happen. Still John Connor (Nick Stahl), is not
at all paranoid when he opts to disappear, to give up everything
including his Mastercharge card, his gig, his residence, and
(horrors) his cell phone, and roam the state. As he fears, a
ferocious cyborg comes out of the future to destroy him and
twenty-one others, people who are predicted to save
humankind albeit, perhaps, after the destruction of the earth.
Not long after the stunning appearance of the gorgeous, athletic
T-X (Kristanna Loken, taking a break from her New York
modeling job) and her determined, emotionless killing of a
woman (for her clothes and car) and a policeman (for a gun
which, given her built-in weapons she hardly needs), the
obsolete T-1000 model appears (Arnold Schwarzenegger), to
act as bodyguard to Connor and a terminally frightened
veterinarian sought by T-X, Kate Brewster (Claire Danes).
Unless you're new to the way movie special effects can cause
entire civilizations to break down, you're likely to appreciate the
opening scenes best, when the action is more identifiable on a
human level. The wittiest segment, then, involves The
Terminator's being reborn in Beverly Hills in his birthday suit.
Terminator, who at first acts seems like the bad guy, simply
does not know the ways of civilized Californians. He strides
naked into a strip joint on Ladies Night to the wild applause of
the young women gathered, violently ordering the current
dancer to remove all his clothes, as though he had just tasted of
the tree of knowledge and requires some covering (again to the
ecstasy of the applauding, screaming crowd).
From there, things don't exactly go downhill, but the story, true
to its theme of machine vs. machine, becomes more
mechanical. Still, to its credit, the movie offers one of the most
destructive car chases in recent memory, the employment of a
100-ton crane that wreaks more havoc through L.A. than the
Crips and the Bloods together, and the outright destruction of
buildings, telephone poles, and utter devastation leaves the
havoc of the zombies in Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" in the
dust.
In the role of the rootless John Connor, Nick Stahl has little
chemistry with Claire Danes' Kate Brewster, but a hookup
between the two had not been expected by either, nor could the
latter have an inkling that she would be instrumental in
ultimately saving humanity. Kristanna Loken steals the movie
even from Arnold, and feminists can rejoice in the ultimate
empowerment of women as the ultra-feminine T-X beats the
stuffings out of Mr. Universe. For those who, unlike me, prefer
the human dimensions shown in the movie's initial half hour,
we're assured that CGI has improved so much in just the last
couple of years that neither T1 nor T2 could have employed the
technology.
Copyright © 2003 Harvey Karten
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