>*"I'll drive. Get out."*

>*"Talk to the hand."*

Not even close to the level of *T1* and *T2*. As a continuation of the story, it kinda sucks, in fact I see this more as a spin-off. There's also a cash grab feeling to it. The creative forces behind the first two have left and the quality has gone down drastically. Despite this though, there's a decent action flick here.

What saves it is the action, it's not the most creative but it kept me entertained throughout. The car chase in LA being the standout. Third act is non-stop action. The 1v1 in the bathroom was awesome. I was worried about the special effects, I had heard it's only CGI but there's a good portion of it that's practical effects. Cool design for the giant robots and plane robots in the second half.

Arnold is probably the biggest saving grace though, if he wasn't there it wouldn't be a decent movie. His one-liners are mostly funny but there's a few that didn't hit right. The story... it's so bad. Also, I think Nick Stahl and Claire Danes were bad casting choices I don't like them in these roles. The bleak ending was a good choice.

I don't really understand why this movie is hated. As far as I'm concerned, this is better than any of the sequels that came after it. Yes, even Dark Fate. That movie felt too much like it was just straight up rebooting Terminator 1, with elements of Terminator 2 sprinkled in there, and even one part of T3 ([spoiler]The T800 in that movie was also the one who killed John Connor[/spoiler]) and didn't have hardly any practical effects.

This one felt a lot more like a natural continuation from where T2 left off. While sure, some might argue that it goes against T2's ending, but I mean you kind of have to in some way if you want to continue the series. I think the way they handled it here makes a lot of sense. Just like in Genisys and Dark Fate, no matter what you do, humans are eventually going to learn how to program AI to the level that it becomes self aware. This movie I think took a bold direction with its ending, and could have led to a great future sequel trilogy if they hadn't abandoned that idea after Salvation. I also think the T-X is a great villain, and there's a ton of absolutely fantastic action with great practical effects and stunts. This movie holds up really well, much better than any of the movies that followed it imo.

I just rewatched after hearing the brilliant Dana Buckler Show (formerly 'How Is This Movie?) podcast episode where they look at each film in the Terminator saga.

There was some great insight to the troubled script and Linda Hamilton's absence. The Skynet applicability to modern Internet. The choice of ending and rating despite large budget. The interplay between Danes and Stahl.

All good points. And it caused me to rewatch.

It is better than I remember but I won't be upgrading my rating.

Heres why...
- It looks like a TV movie. For such a huge budget, why not try to keep the look of the first two films?
- poor attempts at humour. The stripper at women's night scene, the cheesy one liners, the breast augmentation. It's just cringe-worthy.
- the set pieces are good but the CGI is not dating well. Contrast to T2 that still looks pretty good.

And the big miss... Arnold. He's past it by the time of this movie. They pass him off as a replica of T1 or T2 but the dude is just old looking here. The work he must have done (and chemicals) to recreate the physique for the arrival scene will have been immense. But fo rmost of the film, his leather suit is falling off him. Like they bought it for him to grow in to!

It's a decent action flick. But it's way off the quality of T1 or (for my money, one of the best films ever) T2.


6/10

Well... I kind of feel like giving this 10 stars based on Salvation and, especially, Genisys. I mean, in retrospect, compared to those two, it actually feels like you are watching a really good movie doesn't it?

It has a plot that actually makes sense, and, unlike Genisys, it fits into the greater Terminator story without changing everything just to, well, just to change the entire canon and story for the sake of... what? I honestly don't know.

However, when you compare it to Terminator and T2, it actually seems like you are watching a horrible movie. Nick Stahl was possibly the worst person to play John Conner they could have cast, Sarah Coner is gone (and with her the protagonist everyone loved) and Claire Danes just doesn't seem to know what she's doing in the film.

Not only that, but Stahl comes across as the worst possible leader on earth... and he's the one that is supposed to be the legend that finally beats the machines? Seriously? Him?

It might have been better if the Terminatrix was in it for more than a blink of the eye, but she kind of takes a back seat to everything else that is going on and leaves us wondering why they even added her into the movie.

Ultimately, it's not a good film. However, compared to Salvation and the typo, it comes across as a masterpiece.

SPOILERS

Under-rated, worthy chapter to the story, with surprisingly provocative ideas and some stellar acting.

While this movie admittedly has neither the grit of T1 nor the grand vision or pathos of T2, I'd like to share what I believe to be three elements which together cement T3's place in the canon of the Terminator franchise.

The first is the way the actors acted the relationship between Connor and the T-800. While Connor has memories that we the audience recall from T2, the T-800, played by Arnold, was not the same T-800 from T2. This is just another machine from off an assembly line of T-800s that were manufactured. Yeah, Arnold looks like Arnold, but this T-800 has no memory of the previous installment because it was not there. And he acts disconnected, distant and mechanical, betraying zero connection to Connor. That was really cool, and helped we the audience appreciate that, where the T-800 comes from, is a much bigger place than we had heretofore really digested. We only ever saw one or two at a time back in our time; the reality we had not yet seen by the time of T3, is that the future was full of these things, and there's nothing personal about them. We the audience wanted to reconnect to all the good feelings from the end of T2, we wanted to get personal with these machines, and that's really hard to do. This movie smacked us back to "reality".

The second aspect is that this is the movie that puts the transition to SkyNet into a context that we could see. Now we know why and how the government handed control over to SkyNet. T3 displayed what we'd heard a little about in T1, and a little more about in T2, but it did so in a way that did not prompt much in the way of "where did that come from?" or "what are they talking about" that I've ever come across (Terminator Salvation failed test this miserably, spectacularly).

The third and final aspect of the movie that, for me, was rather provocative is that, right up to the end, we the audience are following the stubborn view of Connor that judgment day can be stopped. He was sure they'd stopped it at the end of T2. He was sure they were racing to stop it throughout T3...but, if we the audience stopped ourselves from being emotionally carried away, we'd have come to the realization Connor did earlier that judgment day could not be stopped. The terminators kept coming back from the future because the technology had advanced to where it was both possible and necessary. So judgment day did happen, and the terminator being there meant it couldn't be stopped.

Is T3 the best in the franchise? Heck no! C'mon, I'm not totally crazy. Is it the worst? I don't think so, at all. (I, personally, lay that crown on Terminator Salvation, but I digress...) T2 is the best, for me, for a few reasons. T1 is the honourable second because it started the story and set up many of the devices that would help make T2 among the great sequals of all time - right up there with Godfather 2 and Star Wars Episode 2, and Blade II :-)