 |
MOVIE REVIEW:
TERMINATOR 3 - RISE OF THE MACHINES
(2003)
DIRECTOR:
Jonathan Mostow.
STARRING:
Arnold Schwarzennegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, Kristanna Loken.
|
|
|
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines isn't just a movie about killer cyborgs trying to destroy mankind. It's also about pride, integrity and the persistance of mankind.
That's right, a total lack of artistic pride and integrity and the persistance of mankind in ruining every classic film ever made. We've taken Arnie's famous catchphrase,
"I'll be back" literally too far because as we all know, these fucking movies keep coming back. There is now a FOURTH Terminator and a planned FIFTH, which reek of shit in
their own right. But that's for another review.
If you're not familiar with the basic summary of the first two Terminator films, well then you probably don't watch movies, not good ones anyway. So for those of you
out there admitting they don't know this information, I will now give you a brief rundown. But know this, I don't like you now.
The first Terminator was about a future where humans are like cockroaches, surviving underground, amidst a takeover of machines and cyborgs. Armies (ARNIES!? ho-ho!) of "terminators" (killer
cyborgs) roam the globe hunting down every last human in existence. Why they would want this planet to themselves? I don't know. What they plan to do with it? I don't know. It's not like
the natural resources are useful to them. But meh. My guess is
it's a simple matter of over worked slaves getting some back on their master!
Nevertheless, a terminator is sent back in time to the 1980s to kill a woman named Sarah Connor
(Linda Hamilton) because she will
eventually give birth to her son, John Connor (numerous actors throughout the sequels but unborn in the first). John Connor will one day become the leader of the human
resistance. Terminators don't like John Connor because they want to "KILL ALL HUMANS" and he is obviously getting in their way (in the future), so they send back the
previously mentioned terminator, model T-800 (Arnold Schwarzennegger - I remember when that name was unusual and now we have wankers filling Hollywood with names like
Shia Lebouf and Julia Roberts), to kill Sarah Connor before she can even pop him out. John Connor has one up on those damnded dirty apes... oops, I mean robots... though and he sends back one of their
best soldiers, Kyle Reese (the mighty Michael Beahn) to foil the assassination plan.
In the first movie we are introduced to classic scenes which would be remembered throughout the series. Scenes like both time travellers arriving at their destinations
in a dramatic fashion through what could be described as "an electric bubble", naked. This would lead to the T-800 approaching a random group of bad asses with bad ass
clothes where he would demand they hand over all of it. The terminator always targetted bogans with bogan clothing because I guess the terminator's are heavy metal loving bogans!?
They'd try to fight him but naturally he's a cyborg so he would then proceed to fuck them up and take what he wanted.
Keep an eye out for a young Bill Paxton in this scene playing a punk who should've known when he was being rolled by a terminator.
Kyle Reese on the other hand is nicer about things
so he's forced to scavenge and get about in a more "humane" way.
This is where we know we're watching a "fiction/fantasy" because as we all know humans are scumbags and humane is a made up word so we can pretend we're not scumbags. Kyle
would kill for a bit of fucking KFC in real life, not to mention clothes, guns and shoes.
|
In the process of saving Sarah's ass, Kyle also impregnates her, which leads to the conception of, yep you guessed it - Kid Rock... oh shit, I mean John Connor. Sorry,
must have been the white trash conceiving thing. Anyway, don't try to contemplate how this works out in the timeline of things because it'll lead to a brain disorder I call
"TRYINGTOFORCEBACKTOTHEFUTURETOMAKESENSE-ITIS" and this could lead to spiralling conditions of bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia or your brain exploding leaving you with a forehead
the size of Reese Witherspoons! Yikes! Yes,
I know it doesn't make sense that John Connor sent Kyle back which lead to him fucking Sarah Connor which lead to the birth of John Connor. No, we don't need to use references
like "Which came first? The chicken or the egg?" Yes, James Cameron is insane for giving Linda Hamilton a hot beef injection night after night. Yes, Linda Hamilton's lips
do have their own moon's orbiting them. Ready to move on? Good.
|
|
^^ NOTE: The lack of CGI and it's still just as effective! |
With the T-800 dead, Sarah impregnated, Kyle dead (oh yeah - he died shortly after the sex), everything is kind of happy. kind of, in that we know a bleak future is yet to come.
Terminator 2 picks up ten years later. The movie overall has somewhat of a more studio influenced, visually polished, PG ratedness to it, as in, it's violent, but only when
it really needs to be. Whereas the first one was a smaller budget, darker cyber thriller that could've almost been perceived as a horror film by the softies among us. This was James
Cameron's roots but with success comes the urge to wank that little bit more which each project, to make it that little bit more epic, that's why we have the Titanic movie.
TITANIC!? MORE LIKE BORANIC! Hmmm... no? Nah, didn't think so.
John Connor is now a 10 year old boy, being played by a 14 year old Edward Furlong, complete with breaking voice and all. (add sound sample) Quite a little stinker too. Thanks
to his mum's "alternative lifestyle", alternative in that she was a freak raising her child in Mexico in fear of the eventual takeover of cyborgs, well, he knows a thing or two about
living outside the boundaries of "social security" numbers and pay cheques. He hacks ATM's for "easy money", rides his motorbike like a rascally peckerwood and hangs out with Guns 'n' Roses
fans who have red hair and mullets. Quite the oddball.
This time those snooping terminators have sent back a new improved terminator, the T-1000 (a eerily cold Robert Patrick), who is made of liquid metal and can shape himself
into anything that does not contain internal moving parts, eg. he can turn into a sword (haha that sounds classic) but not a gun because there's internal mechanics. Got it? Good.
John Connor (from the future) is onto him though and sends back a re-programmed T-800 looking exactly like Arnie aged 10 years with a 90s haircut. The T-800 intercepts John Connor and saves
him from the T-1000. But wait, John, where's mum?
Ho, ho ho! There she is, goofing around in the MENTAL ASYLUM! She's now known as a total fucking loon because she doesn't stop discussing what is known as "Judgement Day" which
is when every computer in the world starts to fight back and drops nuclear weapons on every main city on the face of the planet. She plans an escape and does pretty well too
(thanks to her new buff figure) until she is pounced on by several guards. But the joke is on the guards because John and the T-800 have tracked Sarah down and just in time,
because so had the T-1000. In many thrilling chase scenes we see the T-1000 get SO CLOSE to acheiving his objective, but it never happens and after countless trained law enforcement
officials are brutally killed, the heroes of this picture finally destroys the T-1000 by dipping him into a vat of smelted steel.
Lots of other things happen, but this isn't a Terminator 2 review, it's a Terminator 3 review. Needless to say, both Connor's survive (once again, countless other innocent people are killed or maimed though),
Cyberdyne Systems (the company behind Skynet - which is technically the Terminator army - before it goes apeshit) is blown up and all evidence of terminators are erased, including
the T-800, much to John's dismay, who lowers himself into our useful friend - that scally wag vat of smelted steel which killed the T-1000. As he lowers completely into the vat he gives John a thumbs up and
that's the end of that.
I must say I found the thumbs up an awfully human thing to do for a robot that doesn't understand emotions. Even if he did understand the structure to human emotions
it still wouldn't have occured to him that giving him the thumbs up as he dies would be a touching thing for John to witness or would come across equally as noble. I dunno, perhaps the
T-800 DOES understand human emotion and maybe the moments where the T-800 was saying he
doesn't understand emotions were just outtakes of a conversation between Arnie and Edward Furlong they forgot to edit and it's ARNIE who doesn't understand emotions. Either way,
it doesn't add up, but hey, the music that was playing was all noble and sad so it doesn't need justification. Shut up and eat your fucking popcorn ya lush!
So here we are, the world is safe now, right? Shit is ALL good, yeah? John is going to have a stable upbringing and become the most popular jock in high school. Sarah Connor is
going to meet a guy who looks like Arnie and they can pretend he's a robot because that's what they're into. Except for when he gets drunk and abusive and makes Sarah do the dishes all the time. But most of all, the
world's future is safe.
WRONG.
Turns out a rich film studio I wont name needed more money so they read a script by two bad writer type fellows, John Brancato & Michael Ferris. After reading it they agreed to finance TERMINATOR 3 - RISE OF THE MACHINES.
James Cameron refused to get on board as he felt the first two were his contributions on the Terminator franchise. As far as Jimmy Cameron is concerned the ending of the second should be
the ending of the series. Naturally, the studios didn't care about any of that and thought "Fuck, we need to make some more money out of this thing". This lead to Jonathan Mostow taking on the
project's direction and still the studios plotted, "What can we do to bring back something from the earlier entries? We know the script sucks, we need to pull in the crowd! Edward Furlong is a
rock snorting nut job. Linda Hamilton is a bitch. What the fuck are we gonna do!?" Naturally one of them came up with the genius idea of pulling Arnie back into it. Wow, who'd have thought? James Cameron gave
the advice to Arnie (who refused to do it without Cameron's involvement) that he should ask for no less than 30 million bucks to do the film. The studios bent on this and gave Arnie his
ridiculous amount of cash and the rest is bad movie history. Then they rubbed salt into the wound and cast two of the biggest drips in Hollywood, Nick Stahl & Claire Danes, as the two
human protagonists of this film.
Unfortunately, this kind of madness results when the smaller film studios, eg. Orion Pictures & Carolco Pictures (production studios of the first two),
close up shop from taking so many chances on ballsy, gutsier films. You go look up movies like Robocop, Total Recall - fuck, any 80s film by Paul Verhoeven, check out the studio name and
see if they're still around. It's a fucking shame and shows why Hollywood is now totally fairy fucked.
Allow me to summarise the amazing story that was absolutely VITAL to this franchise...
|
 |
About ten or so years later, Edward Furlong was too bloated, old, drug riddled and crazy to play John Connor, so Nick Stahl took over. He's no longer a wild eyed youngster, full of sass
and attitude. He's ditched the motor bike, ditched the "cool" and ditched his red headed mullet wearing friend. Now he's just a pissy, whinging loaner who loves to think. It's stating the
obvious
to say this movie is RICH with monologues. Connor needs to bite the fucking bullet and hang out with more people so he has less time on his hands to piss and moan in his own mind about
his (and the world's) issues. Anyway, he has no social security number, no identification, he's not a number in our beloved system, he's nobody - NOTHING - just a bum. This is so he can't be tracked
down by Skynet.
|
**Scanning image for dignity...| **ANALYSIS: No dignity found. | ^^
|
Where's Sarah Connor now you ask? Well, guess what, after ALL the craziness of the first two outings, we come to learn later in the film she DIED OF LEUKIMIA! Of coooouuuuurse! Shit, I would've
died of leukimia too if I'd spent the better part of my 30s being chased down by terminators! This death should come as no surprise to the fans of that god awful Sarah Chronicles show
because it's mentioned several times each episode that Sarah Connor is in fact DYING OF LEUKIMIA. It should be mentioned the show came out after this ridiculous sequel and we can
still all point our fucking fingers at this film and say "Dere's dah bad guy..." (Tony Montana - Scarface. he he.) Oh well, at least the future of the world is safe and John Connor is safe.
WRONG.
Those ever persistent Skynet/Terminator bastards have come up with yet another crazy scheme! Can you guess what it is? If you can't guess, you can leave now...
...
... Okay, now that everyone who sleeps with
their head resting in a turned on microwave has left, we can continue. THAT'S RIGHT! They're going to send
ONE TERMINATOR back into the past again at another point in time where the technology and weapons are still JUST good enough to compete with anything futuristic. I would've thought one
of the terminator's would've issued a memo to the head office by now raising a non-conformance on whoever is in charge at NOT acheiving there fucking mission! Surely, they've learnt a lesson
by now. Send back more than ONE terminator, or if you're only going to send one termy - send it back to the fucking 1800s and kill ALL of the Connor family. What are they going to do!? Defeat
the terminator with pitchforks!? That just never adds up to me. HEY TERMINATORS - YOU'RE WASTING YOUR TIME SENDING BACK TERMINATORS TO ANYTIME IN THE 20th/21st CENTURY!!
This time the terminator is a model T-X. This could be X for nudity as Kristanna Loken plays the T-X this time and it's not as bad seeing her nude as say, ROBERT PATRICK - ewwww!
Yep, she's a hot chick and it's used to her advantage. This time the terminator
is not only liquid metal but can now shape into things like guns! Wow, just like the T-1000 but with that one thing clearly mentioned it couldn't do! At no point is it addressed why both
these liquid metal terminators retain one appearance most of the time, making it easier to point them out and only change their appearance to get somewhere especially. I guess they simply have no idea how to do their jobs, eg. terminating.
The humans, for an exciting change of pace, have sent another T-800 (Arnie) back in time too. Oh wait, that's not a change of pace at all, THAT'S EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME AS PART 2!? Eh, like a
change of pace could save this numnuts of a movie. It's not like the terminator being a chick does anything for it. This T-800 is definitely the softest (and the oldest looking) of the lot,
although I will give it to Arnie that he did get into incredible shape for this movie, especially for his 56 years of age at the time. But he's still got NOTHING on Stallone! \m/
At the start of each terminator film thus far we have the scene where Arnie acquires clothes. He brutally fucks up a bunch of punks in the first, kinda brutally fucks up some bikers in the
second and in the third he kind of hurts some bikers. After he acquires the clothes in each one he would put his sunglasses on like a fucking bad ass. In this one everyone is waiting for
that cool fucking moment where he puts on his sunglasses. Here it is... he's going to put them on... yea- oh... oh! They're Elton John style flamboyant sunglasses! Ho-ho-ho! Isn't that HILARIOUS!?
Except I'm not here to fucking laugh you turkeys! I'm here to watch robots kills humans! I HATE YOU CUNTS! Why would you even fuck with this formula!? Mistake number 12 in 10 minutes worth of movie.
Cut back to John Connor's imposter, Nick Stahl (I'm going to reference him by the actor's name from now on because he simply is NOT John Connor), breaking into a Vet for drugs. See? Nick Stahl, the
LEADER OF THE RESISTANCE AGAINST ASS KICKING ROBOTS - breaking into a fucking Veterinary for fucking drugs!? Insanity. He's busted there by, Kate Brewster (Claire Danes), and locked in a cage.
At this point we learn they know each other through school days and Claire Danes thinks he's a scumbag piece of poo because... well... he just looks and acts like one, plus he suddenly
disappeared one day and everyone in school thought that was a little weird (probably after all that nasty terminator business). Suddenly the T-X
catches up with them and for a while there I thought the terminator's have finally acheived their mission (well I was praying at least) but look at this - once AGAIN - the T-800 is
there just in time to save the day. Shit, I thought to myself, this is getting fucking old.
After numerous CGI rendered car chases, CGI rendered blood spurts, CGI rendered explosions and CGI rendered CGI we have the end. Somewhere in amongst all the CGI and other annoying shit
we realise the T-X was actually sent here this time to kill everyone else involved in the creation of the resistance (because Nick Stahl could not be located). Nick and Kate are also
told that by the T-800 that HIS EXACT model is the one that caused - THE DEATH OF JOHN CONNOR - right before he was re-programmed to come back and save the day again. So quite obviously
we're learning that Nick Stahl is no longer vital to the resistance, so why all this bullshit? Ohhhh wait, no, no - the writers on the ball! He was vital to the SET UP of the resistance, but
now that he's dead other head honchos can run it. Meh - the only thoughts this nonsense provokes in me is WHATEVER. Kate is also informed that she will
become Nick Stahl's wife and help lead the resistance which is why the T-X tried to kill her. Upon realising she will one day be Nick Stahl's wife she immediately insists he hand over
his wallet. he he he. Nah, she freaks out and acts like a fucking moron - she spends all of the movie doing this, ruining their plans, leaving me to believe that Claire Danes is probably playing
herself in this movie and is probably a fair bit of a moron. Scarier yet, is the fact that Kate's dad, Robert Brewster (David Andrews), who is probably a moron too, is in charge of the now Government military ran SKYNET!
DAH-DAH-DAAAAAH!
Hey guess what? Terminator 3 is really fucking shit! Wanna know why? At one point in the story we're told that no matter what the future cannot be changed. Oh, it can be stalled, but never
changed. Well why is all this time travel shit happening then? Why are you WASTING MY MONEY AND TImE!?! HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE, POLICE, HARD WORKING FAMILY MEN, LINDA HAMILTON - they've all died
because of this shit - and now it's for NOTHING!? Poor game! Wanna know another reason it's really shit? It gathers up all of Skynet's evil, all the cool judgement day stuff we've heard so much about,
puts it into a blender, pisses in it and then turns it on. This is because it puts all of this judgement day mess down to one thing - A VIRUS. Yep, a virus is what made the central proccessing
unit and everything under it go apeshit and kill all the humans. As if all you've read so far isn't enough, do you want MORE reasons to know why T3 is shit? Here goes - the T-800 in THIS film is able
to literally ignore commands he has been re-programmed to follow, eg. The T-X programs him to kill Nick Stahl and Kate, yet he manages to reverse the programming after a little bit of a hissy fit. It's
almost as though he has a heart and cares too much about these kids to kill them *Family Ties music*. Boooooo!
Anyway, *yawns* the T-800 helps Nick Stahl and Kate escape to an old-school bomb shelter and saves them from the T-X by using it's self destruct program. Oh yeah, didn't you know it had
one of those? Well it does, apparently. Why the T-800 didn't use this in Terminator 2 do destroy itself, I don't know, I guess melting was cooler so he could do the thumbs up thing while
being lowered to his death.
|
Nick Stahl and Kate arrive at the bomb shelter, nuclear bombs launch and destroy most of the civilised world and here we are, awaiting what we all knew would come - the aftermath of judgement
day. It's funny though, only minutes after the biggest nuclear attack to the grace the planet, people are already on the CB trying to contact other people. I guess there are some seriously lame
fuckers out there (other than Nick Stahl and Kate) who are literally SITTING BY THEIR CB RADIOS waiting for such an instance where they can contact other survivors. The only cool or interesting part
of Terminator 3 is the end, knowing that any sequels to follow are going to be based on the awesome human vs. terminator war intro's we've seen in all the Terminator films thus far. Unfortunately,
the studios managed to fuck even THAT up.
Okay, so there's a few stupid points to the film. It's just lacking a little polish yeah? Overall, it is STILL a good movie right?
|
|
^^ Looks like a woman confused by machinery to me.
Terminator or not, a dumb blonde is a dumb blonde! BOO-YAH!. |
WRONG.
Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines is a very flawed movie. In terms of writing, casting, directing, acting (to be explained) and FX - it really doesn't fair so well. Now it's not like I
just said "oh, in terms of cinematography - it's not so good". No, the parts I listed are the nuts and bolts of a film. This means it's just fucking bad.
The casting is an attrocious effort. Claire Danes is so misplaced in this film she seems like she has no fucking clue what she's doing. I actually think she has said one of the most annoying
lines in the history of cinema. In one part of the film they manage to trap the T-X but turning on a large electro-magnetic device (much like the real hydrogen particle collider). This makes the
T-X stick to the device and cannot get free. While the T-X is "melting" against the magnetic field, Nick Stahl and Kate stand and stare. But Kate is ANGRY and just watching isn't good enough. Randomly she feels compelled to scream at the T-X, "JUST DIE YOU BITCH!" Now, that could've been
cool if she'd done it like this, *loads shotgun pointed at T-X* "Die... bitch..." *BLAMMO!* But no, instead, she just screams it randomly, it's really quite odd. I'm not even sure if it was meant to
stay in the film. You can even imagine Nick Stahl kind of looking at her like, "Dude..." Weak, effortless, despensable.
Nick Stahl is also miscast in this film. He's not a terrible actor, like Claire Danes, he's just not right for this. Actually, almost everybody besides Kristanna Loken is miscast in this movie. Even
Arnie is doing a phone in performance and he just seems reasonably tired. Arnie does put in a good effort though when his CGI counterpart is doing his thing in a chase scene, but I guess the computer
gets credit for that one ;)
After watching some of the outtakes I also feel alot of the intensity of this film series and the aggression has been removed for all this light hearted shit because too much fun was being had as
they made this film. People are having a fucking hoot. I just couldn't imagine people laughing about with props and shit while making Terminator 2. It would've been too fucking intense! James Cameron
would have ensured dark, intense enthusiasm. It's a movie about the end of the fucking world with robots for Christs sake! Get serious!
But the writing is the biggest hole in this chunk of dried up swish cheese. I've already mentioned the fact that it's clearly toned down. It's riddled with in-jokes and comedic elements.
Things like Sarah Connor being killed off with leukimia is ridiculous and the whole back story has been treated with no respect. The T-800 that has been sent back is not the same T-800
that was sent back in Terminator 2, yet he has retained a few "human" elements that John Connor taught him as a boy, eg. checking the sun visor for the keys (does anybody SERIOUSLY
leave keys there??). Stupid, stupid, stupid. The whole movie reeks of laziness to be honest. You will find yourself scoffing at the more obvious flaws than you will with any that comes
remotely close to clever, which is rare anyway.
|
We are also faced with yet again a movie series ruined by CGI in it's more recent incarnations. The first two filmed barely used CGI. Okay, okay the T-1000 was CGI in the Terminator 2. Not
always, bust mostly. This is something hard to avoid. But fuck me it's CGI overkill in the third and the problem is, IT LOOKS LIKE CGI! It's too soft and colourful and when we have two
previous sequels with similar visuals to compare it to, it only leads to a weaker impression. You think to yourself, how come in the 80s and early 90s we could pull the exact same kind of movie
off with limited special effects but this third relies on terrible CGI almost entirely. Then this leads to the conclusion that all the film's flaws stem from pure laziness. The fourth Terminator film
is rife with CGI and it has even less to stand on because of that. We've also seen the war scenes done without CGI, but hey, the kids love it don't they? Sell to the masses, people, SELL!
|
|
^^ JUST DIE, CLAIRE DANES, YOU BITCH!
|
Surely this third outing is the last of the bad though right? Just the one bad sequel out of an engrossing 4 part movie series?
WRONG.
Terminator : Salvation (Terminator 4) has a rating of 32% on rottentomatoes.com. The lowest score for a Terminator film to date!
Reviewing Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines has made me feel sore, uninspired and tired. I'm done with this series, all the good is gone and it's never coming back. |
While programming a Terminator that looks like Jeff Fahey to go back and kill Julia Roberts's mum, I give this film:
|
1 OUT OF 5 JAGER-BABIES. |
|
|
