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Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines -Warner Home Video (2003)
Summary: John Connor faces the terminators once again. This time one’s a girl... and James Cameron wasn't involved. What does this mean? Explosions! My Thoughts (Spoiler Filled): Let's face it the only reason that Terminator 3 exists is because Warner Brothers wanted to make money off of the successful Terminator franchise knowing full well that people like me are dumb enough to watch anything with a Terminator label. That's not to say that Terminator 3 is the Phantom Menace of this franchise, but there really isn’t a point to its existence. The film is a pretty decent foray into the universe, but it borders more on a decent comic book interpretation that a full-on sequel to the much superior prior films, especially T2 Judgment Day. T3 begins with the voice over by a twenty something John Conner who quotes what he told his father in the future, stay with me now, that the future is not set and you can make it what you want it to be. He then concludes his quote by saying that he wishes he could believe it since the future is really set in stone and there’s nothing anyone can do to change it. Here we have our reason for me wanting to think of this film as an alternative reality adventure into the Terminator universe, otherwise why would the filmmakers totally ruin the entire basis and philosophy of the second film? I can tell you why, because they couldn't come up with any other way to have the future war occur since T2 sealed up most of the major loopholes for another film happening in the first place. Since young John is the cautious type, he lives "off the grid", meaning he lives life in a way that there is no record of who he is or where he is living. It’s a good strategy to follow too, since you never know when a killer robot from the future will come to ruin your next big social event. Unfortunately, living off the grid is a real negative when it comes to medical care. Early in the film he has to dump his bike to avoid smacking into a deer, leaving him with some painful injuries. We also get to see a little of the future war in his dreams in this scene, but after recently seeing T2 it’s disappointing to see the John Connor of the future has gotten much uglier. In the meantime, the female Terminator makes her first appearance and steals some clothes, a car, and gets pulled over by a cop. Here the Terminatrix features her best power yet. In order to get out of the ticket easier, she makes her breasts bigger before the cop approaches the car. Not to get into trouble with my girlfriend, but hot damn that's a handy trick! Regardless of any mammary enhancement abilities, I have to question why making the Terminator a female was really a big deal at the time. I think it’s a neat idea, but the Terminators aren't really male or female since they are robots, especially the T-1000 who was basically a pile of silver goop. Anyway, we learn that the Terminatrix isn't just after John, but a bunch of other kids as well. She brutally murders a teen working a drive through and another at an underage drinking party. There's a college thesis paper for you: Is the Terminatrix a representative of the conservative morality movement or just a robotic hottie from the future? The Terminator sent back to help John is the same model that was sent to kill his mother and saved John as a kid. I know what you're thinking, that it’s just a big crazy coincidence that they'd just happen to pick the exact model of Terminator once again. Don't fear, they explain it later in the film in a pretty neat way. Unexplained, however, is the fact that this Terminator is older. I understand that Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of the anchors for this film, but it’s like having Ripley resurrected in Alien 4. Fans would still go to see it without having to go out of your way explaining why a dead character was back or by having the same model of terminator. The Terminator in this film rides the line of having human emotions and being a tough unfeeling robot. It works sometimes and other times it’s not that believable. In many ways he seems colder compared to the Terminator of T2, but he actually says to a guy at one point, "Talk to the hand." Where in the hell did he learn that? Do they say that a lot in the post apocalyptic future?* Anyway, he appears naked as usual and does the whole getting clothes and transportation thing, this time done with a little more humor. I'm a little split on this, but in the end I realize that it works solely because you can only do this apparel acquisition thing so many times straight. Not to be outdone in the introduction department, Kate Brewster and her father General Robert Brewster make their first appearances. Kate’s significance is revealed later in the film, while Mr. Brewster just happens to be a general in charge of the "new A.I." that could wipe out a computer virus threatening almost every computer on the globe... psst that new A.I. is the evil Skynet! For Kate, events lead her to go to her employer’s office where our buddy John has already done some self medicating for his deer related injuries. The party is spoiled when the Terminator chick comes and kills a customer and tastes her blood to analyze it in a sort of sexy yet insanely gross way. One of the stupidest film clichés occurs after this scene when The Terminatrix goes for Kate, who stupidly gets in her car and can't get it to start. I realize that I'd be panicked too, but you'd think that she'd seen enough movies to know to make sure not to drop her keys when being chased. Arnold rescues Kate from her own ineptitude by making her and John leave him behind to face the Terminatrix alone. She makes short work of Arnold and uses her mighty robot powers to take over some cop cars and an ambulance, while she chooses a giant truck with a crane on it for herself. This leads into one the best chase scenes I've seen since Matrix Reloaded. John's stolen veterinarian truck is smashed like a pinball by all the cars, while the crane truck smashes telephone poles like twigs. Let's stop for a moment and consider something before I go on. In my humble opinion, you can't beat the liquid terminator in terms of ideas. I mean, this new Terminatrix is cool and all with her ability to take over cars and grow really big boobs, but she's too complicated. It’s almost as if the writers were trying really hard to come up with a better idea than the T-1000 in a pitch session.
And there you have the creation of the Terminatrix. Eventually, the heroes reunite and escape. There's tons of exposition by the Terminator who lets us know that that judgment day is inevitable, thereby destroying any hope of averting the awful future and flushing James Cameron's original work down the toilet. At least George Lucas owns his own franchise so he can ruin it by himself without the help of a studio. Again, maybe this is a film like Alien 3 and 4 where you can pretend that it’s an alternative Terminator saga not meant to actually fit into the canon. The heroes then find themselves at a cemetery where we learn, low and behold, John's mother Sara has died of cancer. Aside from the horrible soap opera explanation as to why Linda Hamilton is not in the film, there is also a great appearance by Peter Silberman, the psychologist who's basically the Wedge Antilles of the Terminator franchise. The Terminatrix does some killing and shooting before the heroes make a last minute get away, yet again. Instead of going to Mexico to wait out the inevitable nuclear war in safety and making for a horribly long and boring ending, the heroes come up with another plan. John and Kate decide to stop judgment day by trying to get Kate's father to not start up the Skynet program. They rush to get there... too late. The end sequence of the film is still pretty surprising, considering that the heroes actually fail in this movie. General Brewster tells them there is still hope to shut down Skynet by heading out into the mountains. Lots of running, shooting, and Arnold mugging for the camera later, they make it to the mountain base. Wait a minute; I'm forgetting the whole scene where the Terminator is reprogrammed by the Terminatrix to kill John Connor. There's this really sappy/corny moment where John convinces the Terminator that there's good still in him or something, reminding me of a bad 80s cartoon. “No Lion-O, there’s still good left in you! Fight Mumm-Ra's mind control!” After the Terminatrix is turned into a murderous robot torso and Arnold saves the day, we make it to the best part of the movie. Kate and John get in the underground base to shut down Skynet when they realize that they've been fooled! They were led to the safety a fallout shelter while all the nukes in the world are blowing everything up. I really liked this finale since it wasn't what I had expected at all. We see John taking command as he takes the calls from military bases around the U.S., thereby showing us that his destiny is finally taking shape. I never thought that T3 would end with such a downer ending, but it was chilling and a lot more thought provoking than the rest of the movie. It also left the door open to have a possible sequel taking place solely in the future (I could only hope). Although, another even older Arnold will probably be sent to stop Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated or something equally dumb to rob me of my two hours of robot war action. The good thing about Terminator 3 is that it's a pretty fun action flick if you don't want to think about it. Where the original two Terminator films where smart exercises in fun sci-fi action adventure, Terminator 3 is more in the vein of films like Star Gate, good for a viewing once in awhile, but nothing that you'll go too nuts over. As for the sound/picture quality, expect a very good presentation, but not the best one in the universe. The picture is nice and clear and the 5.1 Dolby Digital surround mix does more than enough to keep the action exciting. Extras: Unlike the previous Terminator releases on DVD that I've reviewed, this version is actually a two disc edition, hurray! The case however, is not half as fancy as the metal one for T2, or even as good looking as the T1 release. The motion menus are functional and good looking, with the menu buttons melting like the liquid metal of the Terminatrix. Neat. On the first disc you'll find the feature along with commentary by principle stars including Mr. Schwarzenegger and a separate track for director Jonathan Mostow who talks about how he let everyone down with this sequel. Just kidding. The cast commentary track is mixed together from separate recordings (sigh). Otherwise, it’s as interesting as it can get, especially with Schwarzenegger lending his voice. Also included on this disc is the film trailer, and a video game trailer, ahem commercial, for the highly ignored T3: Rise of the Machines game. I’m praying someone will make a worthwhile Terminator game someday, I mean it’s such a great universe for it. There's also supposed to be DVD Rom features, but I couldn't access them for whatever reason on the laptop I tried the disc in. I only got a message saying, "Insert this Disc into your PC's DVD ROM drive for more additional features." Disc two contains an introduction by Arnold Schwarzenegger. What is with these things? They are completely useless and I'm seeing them more and more. The documentary "Inside Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" is the standard fast paced and mostly mindless MTV style doc. After you get the taste of that out of your mouth, there's a deleted scene located on the front menu. This is one of the best deleted scenes I've seen in a long time. I'm glad that it wasn't included in the final cut of the film, but it’s a hilarious bonus. In the next set of menus you'll find a partially okay gag reel. More promising is something called the "T3 Visual Effects Lab" that delves into the making of the special effect of T3. It’s broken up into several sections detailing different scenes. The "Create Your Own Special Effects" portion was one of the best parts of the visual effects section, because it allowed you to change a few elements in a couple of scenes. You can remove a couple of things like smoke and change lasers into flamethrowers in the future war, for example. I'd really like to see more of this on other DVDs. The "Skynet Database" has you answering a trivia question before you can access the database. Once you get "in" you have access to character profiles. A problem arose for me when reading about General Brewster. It says that Brewster picked up where Miles Dyson left off by reading his "back up notes" and creating a microprocessor. As far as I knew Dyson was damn thorough at getting rid of all of his notes, so that's a pretty lame way for explaining where it came from. Also included is a section on the evil robots of the future. All the evil robots in the bar give me a Hell yeah! For those of you confused by all the happenings of the Terminator universe, there's the handy dandy Terminator timeline. I'd only recommend this if you ignore all the changes made to the timeline because of T3. Rounding out the rest of the extras are storyboards, a mini doc about the costuming, a feature on the toys with a spotlight on everyone's favorite moron Todd McFarlane (sorry Shawn), and the game trailer.... again. Score: Film: 7.5 Extras: 8.5 Edition: 8.5 -Paul
* A reader pointed out that earlier in the film a male stripper does indeed say, "Talk to the hand" to the Terminator. I still prefer my vision of a post apocalyptic robot hell populated by robots that throw attitude back in your face.
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