Went and saw T3 tonight – great movie.
I have read reviews which panned the movie – but I really don’t know what they were expecting from it.
It was an action flick – it was always going to be – with the story coming second. If they expected anything different then they are simply fools.
Unlike The Hulk, which I saw last week and which suffered from too much action/too little story (or too much story/too little action, depending on your point of view), Terminator 3 was mostly action with a touch of story to continue on the Skynet saga.
Don’t go expecting to have huge parts of the story unravelled, this movie covers less than a day in time – and tells only a small part of the story. And while it fills in some of the gaps and answers some of the questions posed at the end of Terminator 2 – it still leaves quite a bit hanging and many people will be quite disappointed with the ending.
Personally, I thought the ending was quite appropriate – especially given the story they laid out in front of you during the film.
For an action flick, it was certainly that – full of action – quite suspenseful at times, and plenty of make-you-jump moments. Some quite innovative action sequences, with the car/crane/fire-engine chase sequence one of the best chases I’ve seen in a movie (although I couldn’t help feeling I’ve seen a similar chase before – the JC/T1000/T100 chase in T2).
Arnie was a bit bland in his role – with only a couple of moments showing the style he pulled off in T2. Seems like he was just going through the motions – and was already too busy counting the money he would make. Some nice comic twists in there – which some people really don’t like in an action flick, but I actually appreciated.
Nick Stahl wasn’t too bad as the shell-shocked and unstable John Conner – although he did get into things a bit better towards the end, but overall I think it was pretty lame. I still think Michael Biehn and Linda Hamilton made the first two movies what they were – the desperation shown, the hard edge that just wasn’t in the other actors in any of the films.
I thought Claire Danes as Kate Brewster was pretty good – showing a wide range of emotions, annoyance, curiosity, fear, terror, frustration, anger, confusion, lots more terror, anguish, defiance, desperation, and finally grim determination, resolve and even tenderness and understanding.
But the movie was stolen by Kristanna Loken as the T-X/Terminatrix – she was just awesome ! Not only does she look absolutely awesome (never a hair out of place, even after all those fights !), but she carried off the cool and calculating role with a real style and a touch of humour at just the right times. She really made the movie – great casting choice there.
Overall I give it the following ratings:
6/10 for story – given that it was first and foremost an action flick, this is probably still high. I actually thought the story had a lot of potential, and taken in the context of part three of a series of movies, the story worked well – but on it’s own it really doesn’t work.
9/10 for wow factor – some awesome effects and fantastic action sequences. Not much more to say really.
7/10 for acting – Kristanna brings the score up above 5 all on her own. I did like Claire Danes and Arnie had the occasional moment as well, but ooooh Kristanna !
3/10 for avoiding Hollywoodisms – this was an interesting one. The John Conner story is an interesting one – quite bitter and seemingly hopeless (even though we supposedly know that John Conner leads the resistance to victory in the future). The ending was not exactly peaches and cream, in fact it was quite bitter – but it still was a little Hollywood. But at the end of the day, it was an action film which is what Holywood does best, and the story suffered as a result.
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